Board of Education Meeting 03/10/26

001We are now in the meeting of open session. We'll start with pledge of allegiance. Pete? We are pleased to welcome our district's literacy coaches, Melissa Stacy and Katie Clinton. Thank you. They will lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Thank you, Katie. Melissa and Katie recently played a key role in organizing and leading our Literacy is Life event, which brought together families, students, and community partners to celebrate and promote literacy throughout our district. We will share more about the event and their leadership during the staff reports later in the meeting. At this time, please join me in welcoming Melissa and Katie to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I'd like to ask everyone to stand. Please pledge allegiance. Please place your right hand over your heart. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

002United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda for March tenth, twenty twenty-six? So moved. Second. Moved by Bianca, second by Roberta. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Five to zero. May I get a motion to accept the minutes for the February tenth, twenty twenty-six regular meeting? So moved. Second. Moved by Missy, second by Pete. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Five to zero. May I get a third motion to approve the minutes from the February twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-six board study? Second. Moved by Roberta, second by Pete. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any nays? Five to zero. Actions resulting from closed session. We have three items. We have a settlement agreement. Be

003it resolved that the Board of Education accept settlement between MUSD and employee four five four nine, passed and adopted this tenth day of March twenty twenty-six in the County of San Bernardino, California, with a vote of five zero. Next up, we have our ele-- resolution to release and reassign certificated administrative employees pursuant to Education Code four four nine five one, Resolution number twenty-six dash one one. Whereas the provisions of California Ed Code Section four four nine five one require that a certificated employee holding a position requiring administrative or supervisor credential be notified by March fifteenth that the governing board determines that he or she may be released from his or her position for the following school year. Now, therefore, it is hereby resolved and ordered by the Board of Education the following employees may be

004released from the po-positions indicated below effective June thirtieth, twenty twenty-six, and reassigned to classroom teaching position or other management certificated positions for twenty-six, twenty-seven. This impacts employee eight seven three three and employee nine eight two five. The vote was five zero. Lastly, we have a resolution to release and reassign certificated administrative employee pursuant to Education Code four four nine five one, Resolution twenty-six dash one zero. Whereas the provision of California Ed Code Section four four nine five one require a certificated employee holding a position requiring administrative or supervisor credential be notified by March fifteenth if the governing board determines that he or she may be released from his or her position for the following school year. Now, therefore, it is here-hereby resolved and ordered by the Board of Education the following employee shall be released

005from the position indicated below effective June thirtieth, twenty twenty-six, and reassigned to a classroom teaching position or other certificated position for the school year twenty six point seven. This impacts employee five four eight, and that also had a vote of five zero. All right. In the light of those, let's get our student representatives, and we start with Washington this evening. Good evening, members of the Moreno Unified School District Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Varnez, and cabinet members. My name is Brandy W. And my name is Pete Jordan. We are both eighth-grade students at Washington Middle School. Thank you for giving us another opportunity to speak about our school this evening. Since we were here at the January Board of Education meeting, we've had m-many fun activities going on in Washington. Our girls basketball team, coached

006by Ms. Carrie DeLuca, played two games against Twenty-Nine Junior High School. We were fortunate to use the Bell Center at CMC for the first game, and we won the second-- and we won the second game at Twenty-Nine Palms Junior High School. Our GATE students had an opportunity to visit the Palms Springs Art Museum on January third, where they explored the exhibits and learned many, many exciting things. Mr. Chris Krayt, a professional wrestler and motivational speaker, visited our school in February. He spoke to students about challenges he has faced throughout his life.And risk taker. He inspired students by sharing how hard work, perseverance, and believing in himself helped him overcome those obstacles and achieve success. On February twelfth, we had a unified leader Valentine's activity. Students visited first-period classrooms to hand out Valentine's grams to students

007and teachers. On February seventeenth, our GAI students visited Black Rock in Joshua Tree National Park and learned how to track animals using radar devices, searched for replica tortoises, and hiked as well. It was a fun and great learning experience. In February, we had our seventh and eighth-grade Pride celebrations. Many students were celebrated for perfect attendance for second quarter, perfect attendance for first semester, and Student of the Month awards for November, December, and January, and also both Lions Honor Roll and Principal's Honor Roll. On February twenty-fourth, sixty students participated in Rachel's Challenge Chain Reaction as a follow-up to the first Rachel's Challenge presentation in November. We would like to thank Mrs. Heidi Burgett, the SELPA director, for providing the Rachel's Challenge and Chain Reaction programs to Washington students. Local agencies recently sponsored two eighth-grade field trips,

008one to Desert View Conservation area, where students hiked, watched bouldering and mountain biking demonstrations, and learned about animal tracking. The second trip was to Harrison House and Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree. Hi. Students were informed of programs at CMC and learned about art in college at Harrison House. We want to thank the local organizations who made these great trips possible for our students. Last Thursday, our girls and boys soccer teams played games at Washington against Twenty-Nine Palms Junior High School. We are excited to report that both teams won. The boys had a score of six to zero, and the girls had a score of seven to zero. Way to go, Lions. Thank you again, and do you have any questions for us? Any more for them? Thank you very much. Twenty-Nine Palms questions. Wow.

009Good evening, Board President Clair, Superintendent Dr. Vargas, and esteemed members of both the board and cabinet. I'm James Rovsky, an eighth-grader at Twenty-Nine Palms Junior High School. Happenings at TPJHS. Athletics. Last Thursday, March fifth, the boys and girls soccer team visited and competed with Washington Middle School. Unfortunately, both teams lost, but there will be a rematch this Thursday at TPJSHS at two. Last week, Thursday and Friday, the eighth-grade students visited Joshua Tree National Park and got the opportunity to hike and climb rocks in the wilderness area, learning their effect on the ecosys- Oh, sorry. Ecosystem, while also seeing historical artifacts. The Steam Tubs. TPJHS Robotics will compete this Saturday and Sunday at the state tournament. Cafeteria update. The build is coming along nicely. The floors have been surfaced. Appliances and workstations have been installed. They

010started w-working on the outdoor area and started pouring cement in certain areas. Do you have any questions? Are we excited about that new building? We're very excited. Even though you'll be able to enjoy it. Yeah. Nonetheless. Thank you very much. Anybody else from the board? Thank you. Last but not least, the Wildcat. All right. Uh, good evening. I am Twenty-Nine Palms High School student, William Assumption, representative to the Board of Education. There's a lot of exciting news to share about TPHS this month. In academic news, the spring testing season has begun at TPHS, kicking off the LPAC for English learners. Our ninth-grade students also took their PSAT nine, eighty-nine last week, and this week our sophomores are taking the PSAT ten. When we return from spring break, our tenth-grade students will also be taking the

011California Science Test, and our juniors will also be doing their best to earn their senior ins-- senior incentives on the math and English cast testing. It's also college acceptance season. We're very excited that we've begun to celebrate the class of '26, the Oh, the Places We'll Go All. So far, we've already celebrated five seniors who have committed to serve in the US Armed Forces, one career technical-- one Career Technical Institute enrollment, and a commitment to a four-year university. We're also very excited to share that two of our Wildcat seniors have already been accepted into UC Berkeley and have been invited to visit the campus to interview for the prestigious Regents and Chancellors scholarship, which is awarded to only two hundred and fifty students yearly at UC Berkeley. So good luck to Avielle Lipkins and Jayden

012Alston as they travel to the Bay Area to pursue their dreams. In sports action, we have another successful winter season of athletics at Twenty-Nine Palms High School. Our girls basketball team was Desert Valley League champions for the second year straight, this year going undefeated in league play and also winning the Dolores Duyck Invitational Tournament for the second straight season. The girls made the CIF Division Five playoffs, where they unfortunately lost to Fullerton Union High School. Boys basketball are also Desert Valley League champions. They-- as they made the CIF Division Eight playoffs, advancing all the way to the quarterfinalsBoth the boys and girls basketball teams featured their respective Desert League Valley-- Desert Valley League MVPs, Chris Grove for the boys and co-MVPs, Isla Grant and Talyn Trimble for the girls. While the wins were tough to

013come by for the boys and girls soccer teams, we continue to see growing interest in programs as both had record high post-pandemic students turn out for the teams. We've also just started spring sports, but there are already a few early highlights there. We've had very strong showings from both our boys and girls track teams in early meets, and our girls pushing to repeat as DVL champions. Baseball, softball, boys tennis, and golf teams have had their ups and downs during the preseason starts, but are continuing to improve every day. With league play about to begin, we are looking forward to competing for more league championships and playoff berths. In news from our Wildcat community, last week at TVHS, we had an inclusion spirit week, where the leadership class paired with Mr. Shay's and class of discussing

014spirit week days and lunchtime activities that the entire campus should be involved in. The sp-spirit week went very well, as many students participated in spirit days and lunchtime activities. Speaking of lunchtime activities, ASB is also very excited about the change to a one lunch schedule for next year. On March twentieth, we will also be hosting our annual I-Fest celebration. This year's I-Fest includes clubs like Filipino, Polynesian, and Vietnamese clubs. I-Fest concludes with a special tradition consisting of purchasing food of different cultures from clubs after school. A few options available for purchase include lumpia, musubi, and candy sushi. I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you all to join us at I-Fest. Looking forward to the rest of the semester upcoming, we have spring sports assembly, all school awards, Error fifteen minutes, prom, and graduation.

015That's all I have for today. Thank you for letting me give you an update on the many great things happening at TVHS. Do you guys have any questions? Yes. Can you repeat when I-Fest is? Yes, ma'am. It is scheduled for March twentieth, and will be held after school. Awesome. I'm very excited. I've always wanted to attend. There's a lot of great food there. I highly recommend it. I'm excited. Thank you. Of course. Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Very nice job by all four students. As custom, you can either stay and watch the adults, or you can run along and just start your evening. So thank you very much. Next up, I believe is the legislative report. I have none. No report. Okay, that would get us to classified representative. Good afternoon,

016school board and Dr. Vargas and cabinet. Thank you again to the board members who took the time to meet with us. We appreciate the opportunity to speak openly, and we want to be clear about the depth of our concern. The ongoing discussion about layoffs and school closures are not abstract policy decisions. They are choices that will directly shape the stability, safety, and future of our community. What's at stake for our schools and families? Students will lose trust with educators and supportive staff, the very people who create safe, consistent learning environments. Families will face longer commutes, overcrowded classrooms, and reduced access to essential programs, especially those who are already struggling with transportation and childcare. The community will feel the ripple effect from declining enrollment to reduced local engagement and weakened neighborhood identity. Why these decisions matter

017beyond the numbers, budget challenges are real, but the consequences of these cuts reach far beyond spreadsheets. Schools are anchors, social, emotional, and economic. When they are distabil-destabilized, the entire community absorbs the impact. We believe any decision of this magnitude must be approached with transparency, collaboration, and full understanding of the human cost. Our request moving forward, we ask the board continue to involve staff, family, and community members in every stage of this process. We are committed to working together to find solutions that protect students, preserve jobs, and maintain the integrity of our schools. Thank you, certificate representative. No report tonight. No report. Thank you for your attendance. Lorraine Corbrett? No report tonight. Thank you, Lorraine. Thanks for your continued support. That leads us to the report by Dr. Tracy Martinez. Good evening. It is my pleasure

018to welcome our Director of Professional Learning, Instruction, and Enrichment Support, along with our two amazing literacy coaches, Katie and Melissa, up to the podium. They will be sharing some highlights about our recent Literacy is Life community event, which took place here at Joshua Tree Elementary a couple of Saturdays ago. It was a great event and, they'll be sharing with you. Thank you. Good evening, Board President Clan, board members, Superintendent Vargas, and cabinet members. I'm excited to share a brief update of our recent Literacy is Life family event, which was a wonderful celebration of reading, learning, and community. This year, we welcomed over three hundred families who joined us for a day filled with instru-- interactive literacy activities designed to inspire love for books and learning. As students enter the event, each student received a literacy

019passport. Students then visited thirteen partner booths, where they interacted with organizations through engaging activities. At each booth, students participated in games, learned about the importance of literacy, and engaged in a variety of creative and educational experiences. As they visited each booth, their passports were stamped, creating an exciting and interactive journey throughout the event. At the final destination, students had the opportunity to meet two of our guest authors, Josh Autry and Candice Fleming. Each student received a personalized autographed book, which made the experience even more memorable and meaningful for our young readers. The energy throughout the day was incredible. Families, students, and staff were actively participating in literacy games and selecting books to take home, and discovering new ways to support reading at home. Events like this remind us that literacy truly comes to life when

020schools, families, and community partners work together to support student learning. An event like this truly takes a community. We are incredibly grateful for the many individuals and organizations who helped make this day possible. I want to take a moment to recognize and thank the following staff members, volunteers, and community partners for their support. Caughlin Mountain College, San Bernardino Superintendent of Schools, Big Event Photos, Groundworks, Student Transportation of America, Yucca Valley Elementary Dual Language Program, Twenty Nine High School Last Page Book Club, Twenty Nine High School Cadets, Yucca Valley High School National Honor Society, our Expanded Learning Program, United for Literacy, Morongo's Teachers Association, Morongo Basin Healthcare District, Toys for Tots, iReady, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Cookie Crumble, Nutrition Services, and Ms. Maria, custodian of Joshua Tree Elementary. District employees Nicole Parks, Bridget Sears, Wayne Hamilton, Hamilton, Wendy

021Toyama, Dr. Gracie Gutierrez. Thank you for your continued support of our opportunities like this that bring our communities together and help our... inspire our students be-- to become lifelong readers. Thank you. If we can have, if we can have our literacy coaches, remain up here for a recognition. Thank you. Thank you. Can I go in first? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Can I go in first? Yes. Thank you. Hi, buddy. Hello, Mike. Good evening. I didn't know if this was- President Tinger, Superintendent Dr. Vargas, Board of Education. I am here to give you a very preliminary update on the success of our Flying Doctors event this past weekend. There will be further data that I will be able to collect for you in a coming month, but right now I wanted to let you know

022that we, provided three hundred and sixty services. We saw one hundred and twenty-two dental patients. We saw fifty-seven patients for prescription glasses. We gave fifty-eight EKGs, and we did thirty-six auditory hearing screenings. We provided forty-three free haircuts, and we provided thirty-two massage therapy sessions, one of which was had by Mr. Wood. I need it. And lastly, we provided twelve vaccinations, nine of which were current MUSD students who needed vaccinations to attend schoolSo I will have further breakdown later, but I wanted to give you those preliminary results because you have been so supportive of the Blind Doctors program. Secondly, I would like to provide you very good news. So did you know that military-connected students change schools between six and nine times throughout their educational career? They have academic and social-emotional challenges, of course, and they

023struggle to be college and career ready. They must adapt to different cultures, standards and curriculum, schedules and course offerings, and graduation requirements. There is a program called the Purple Star Program, and it's designed to help mitigate the challenges of high mobility by setting standards for and publicly designating military superior schools. The Purple Star Program's true value derives for its potential to centralize and make knowledge accessible, develop stakeholder networks, and support schools in cultivating and communicating cultural competency in supporting military-connected families. The California Department of Education launched the Purple Star Schools Program in twenty-one, twenty-two. The California Purple Star School Designation Program seeks to reduce the burden on military-connected students and their families by articulating the most critical transition supports for military-connected students and their families by publicly designating schools that are the most committed and

024the best equipped in the state of California to meet their unique needs. We did apply for Purple Star status for four of our schools this year. You have to have a certain number of military students attached to the school to even be able to apply. And I am pleased to inform the Board of Education that all four schools were designated as Purple Star schools this year, and I would like to bring up their principals to publicly recognize Twenty-Nine Palms High School. Assistant Principal Jennifer Langham. Twenty-Nine Palms Junior High School, Principal Derek Swan. Twenty-Nine Palms Elementary School, Principal Nicole Travis. And Purple Star School, Condor Elementary, Principal Dr. Nora Reed. This is a huge honor, and we would like to have a picture with the Board of Education and our superintendent as Purple Star designated schools.

025Okay, public comment is up next. Um, we've decided that we typically have a twenty-minute time limit based on the number of people that want to speak tonight. We're willing to extend the twenty minutes, but we do ask that the three min-- that you respect the three minutes, otherwise we'll be here for a long time. We wanna hear everybody, otherwise I'd have to cut-- we'd have to cut a bunch of you off. So please respect the three minutes if you can. Appreciate that. Individuals may address the board on issues within the jurisdiction of MUSD Board of Education that is not on the agenda. There's a time limit of three minutes per person. Please refrain from applause or side commentary to ensure the board members can properly hear all fellow speakers. Members of the public are expected

026to maintain a professional, courteous tone during these comments. Inappropriate behavior which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting will result in forfeiture of your public comment privileges. The board is prohibited by state law from taking action or discussing items not included on the printed agenda. Public comments on specific agenda items will be deferred until consideration of the item on the agenda. Many of the items, or many of the comments are outside of the agenda, so we'll start with those, and then we'll address the individual items for-- that are agenda-specific items. So with that being said, we're gonna start with Margot Jaubert. Um, I had filled out two cards. Which one am I talking on? This one is on, enrollment. Uh, enrollment committee, excuse me. Okay. Good evening, board. My name is

027Margot Jaubert. I have attended two enrollment committee meetings, and I understand there needs to be change so that our district is not in deficit. But closing schools should be the last resort. The tone of the district at these meetings seems to be pushing closures. This compelled me to come address you tonight.Before closing schools, let's talk about increasing revenue. It's time to make changes to bring students back that we have lost when parents pulled their students because of behavior problems not being addressed, lack of tutoring options, limited enrichment opportunities, combo classes, large class sizes, and poor leadership at schools. If we can fix MUSD's reputation, I'm sure we can bring back those lost enrollments. But this change needs to come from the top. Has the board given serious consideration to expanding ACE to increase enrollment? Is

028there funding for our rural and unique area? Does our district actively lobby for money? And for cost savings, how about a four-day week? Or how about the district management staff that seems excessive for a small district with declining enrollment and at times inefficient? For example, responses from district may take longer than expected, positions aren't being filled in a timely manner, frequent reorganization of instructional services makes it difficult to know the roles and responsibilities of who does what. Or perhaps that's another conversation for another time. To conclude, if the district does close schools, how can we trust that the money the district will save will be put back into the students and the schools that have been consolidated and not line more of the district's pocket? I want to remind the board that several years ago,

029when district management took the me too raise, they did not put a percentage back into helping class sizes like our teachers did. Trust was broken. I hope the board puts serious thought into ways to improve revenue and cut costs rather than closing schools. Thank you. Thank you. Next up will be Stephanie Dashiell. Good evening. My name is Stephanie Dashiell, and I'm a fifteen-year resident of Joshua Tree. I'm a mid-career professional and a parent of two kids, both attending Sunny Hills. I attended the enroll- Stephanie. Uh, keep looking at me. Yep. There you go. I attended the enrollment committee meeting for the first time last Wednesday. Before the meeting, I read through the committee website, and it says that this phase will focus on evaluating right-sizing options to ensure our resources are used effectively while continuing

030to serve students in the best way-- best possible way. And that the committee recommendations may include potential facility upgrades, school consolidations, or large-scale programmatic adjustments. I've been hearing from other engaged community members since last spring that the district intends to close four elementary schools, but I have yet to hear or read it directly from the district. Last Wednesday's meeting and the fact that the February site tour only included elementary schools, not other MUSD facilities, made it clear that is what the district has in mind. For those of you in this room who weren't at the meeting, I want to share some of my observations from last Wednesday. First, the talks given by Doctors Vargas and Gutierrez were clearly geared towards convincing the committee that elementary school closures and consolidations are the only path towards quality

031educational programming within the district. The many members of the public who spoke did not agree. They presented several considerations not yet presented to the committee and presented alternative scenarios and solutions that do not include closing schools. The committee was given homework to rate elementary schools based on predetermined criteria. The criteria were given weights using sticky dots at the meeting. It was clear that both the public and the enrollment committee thought this exercise was premature, given the committee has not been presented with all the information they need to make an informed recommendation to this board about the future of our schools. As I see it, there are three buckets of additional research and information the enrollment committee needs to consider before making any recommendation. The first bucket relates to the full suite of impacts that would

032result from school closures. Busing times, family choosing to homeschool after a school closure, community, quality of life, classroom crowding, child educational, social, emotional development impacts. The second bucket relates to options to increase revenue, as the previous speaker mentioned. And the third bucket relates to scenarios for reallocating existing funding, transitioning elementary schools to a K through eight model, redrawing district area boundaries that are twenty-five years old, reallocating funds from administration and consulting to school sites. Based on these observations, I urge all board members to pay close attention to what the stated purpose of the enrollment committee is and how it is misaligned with the false choice- Thank you. -the committee has been presented. Thank you very much. Next up, Genevieve Dellinger. Good evening. My name is Genevieve Dellinger, and I've been a full-time resident of this

033desert for eleven years, and my children are nine and six years old. They are both children, attending Yucca Mesa Elementary, and I myself am a pa-parent volunteer there, as well as an activist. I personally am a product of public schooling and take a lot of pride in sending my own kids through the public school system. We understand the pressure of the budget and the challenges facing this district, but to be frank, we cannot balance the books on the backs of our most vulnerable children.Consolidation sounds efficient in a boardroom, but in the desert, it means hours of travel for our most underserved students in outlying areas. Closing a school doesn't just mean a different bus stop, it can mean a ninety-minute commute each way. I think it's really important for this board to consider when does

034a child do homework if they're on a bus until five thirty PM? When do they play? When do they spend time with their family and friends? Research shows that for every one additional minute of a morning commute, students lose an average of one point three minutes of sleep. If you move a student from a local school to one-- to one twenty minutes further away, you aren't just taking forty minutes away of their day, you're effectively robbing them of nearly an hour of sleep and the, the recovery time that they need to grow. We can't expect children to focus, learn, and grow when they arrive at school burnt out and exhausted. And we know that distracted children also create further problems for children in those classrooms who may not be traveling as far. The students of

035Landers Elementary live largely below the poverty line. How does a parent without a reliable vehicle attend a teacher conference or pick up a sick child if the school is now twenty miles away? We're effectively taxing our poorest families with the time they do not have. If Landers Elementary closes, Yucca Mesa Elementary will absorb over a hundred and twenty students. We're told that consolidation optimizes resources, but consider the reality that the larger pools of students lead to overcrowded classrooms. In a district where many of our students require specialized attention and Title I support, consolidating schools is a recipe for falling behind. You can't consolidate the individual needs of a struggling reader or a student dealing with trauma. Giving teachers a stipend to deal with the larger class sizes simply does not solve the issue of grappling

036with a large student population. Those students will get lost in the shuffle of a crowded, centralized campus, and the longer commuting times risks greater dropout and chronic absenteeism rates. I want to thank the committee for allowing me to share my perspective on this critical issue. It will impact many families in our community. Thank you. Next up, Justin Safi. Mic please. Hi. A few weeks ago, I followed the enrollment committee as it toured all our elementary schools, and I walked the campuses, I spoke with parents and teachers, and I've read these reports. And I'm questioning the thinking of anyone who looks at the same and sees surplus in need of consolidation. Because what I saw was not excess. I saw effort, I saw care, but I did not see schools overflowing with opportunity. I did not

037see music programs or bust arts. I did not see debate clubs or theaters or programs of advanced science. Although I guess we have space for it, we're not doing that. So when this conversation is framed around consolidation and surplus, I wanna say something plainly. The problem here is not too many schools, and I don't believe that less will somehow give our children more. The problem is too little investment making it to the schools that we already have. See, there's something else going on that I want to address and that people are picking up on this process. In storytelling, there's a technique called the magician's choice. It's also called equivocation, and it works like this: several choices are presented, and the audience feels like they're participating, but every path leads to the same predetermined outcome. So

038when the only question being explored with funding is which schools to close, that stops feeling like an open conversation about budgets and starts to feel a bit like a trick. The magician's choice, which school do we close? How would the question be, how ambitious are we willing to be for our children? I mean, everything in the High Desert right now is growing and expanding, and the desert spreads out. It doesn't consolidate, it spreads out so it can survive and thrive, and our communities work the same way. These schools are not inefficiencies. They are the roots that hold the community together. So imagine schools here with actual instruments and rooms of art and theater and debate and journalism, I mean, the scale that our children deserve. So let's not begin with our schools must become fewer.

039Let's begin with our schools should become more. Because in California, one of the largest economies in the world, in one of the most extraordinary environments anywhere, our children deserve a school board who are going to ask how to grow their opportunities and not offer equivocation for education. So please, no cuts, no closures, and no magician choices. I thank you. Thank you. Next, Vadim Achter. Good evening, trustees, administration, the residents of Morongo Basin. My name is Vadim Achter. I'm a parent and classified employee since twenty twenty-one and a taxpayer. I'm here because I believe the most valuable thing a public school district owns is not equipment or buildings. It is trust. And trust is built through transparency, consistent rules, and accountability that applies upwards, not only downward. Right now, too much of what the public sees

040feels backwards. Less clarity at the top, more pressure at the bottom. When staff and families ask reasonable questions, they are too often met with delayed deflection and behind processes, language instead of clear answers. When selective surveillance practices are used and as-- administrative pressure around employees who raise concerns, it creates a chilling effect. And in a public institution, people should not feel like asking accountability questions will bring extra scrutiny on them. And while closures are still described as only under discussion, site support position at those schools are being placed on administrative hold and left unfilled without public discussion or approval. That creates the perception that decisions are already being implemented before the public process is completed. So the public is left with a serious question: How can families know that board decisions are truly protecting their

041children's interests and not simply ratifying management priorities that have not been fully tested in public? There is also a broader culture, issue the board needs to examine. When leadership becomes preoccupied with optics, external recognition, internal competition, and imported corporate models of professional growth, the culture moves downward into how departments behave, how staff speak up, and how decisions are justified. They may fit private corporation, but it doesn't fit public school district. Schools are not Amazon. They're a public institution rooted in community trust, stability, and care. Voters were asked to support Measure C on the promise of improving district schools. Families were asked to invest hard-earned money into the future of those campuses, and now communities are being asked to accept school closures at the heart of necessary change while district is preserved-- representing ambitious project of

042constructing our center. This contradiction is not just financial, it is moral. The superintendent's contract runs through June thirtieth, twenty twenty-six, so this board has very little time to answer a simple question: Is it the direction we want for our kids and our community, a future of polished slides, positive AI messaging, closed schools, continued deficit spending and less transparency, or a future where decisions are made honestly with the public fully informed, with alternatives clearly examined, and with leadership held to the same standards of accountability accepted from frontline staff every day? Before extending leadership contracts or advancing any irreversible consolidation decisions, ask yourself, has the district earned the public's trust for the direction it's taking? Trust is not slogan. Trust is a system. Please make it work for the future of our children. Thank you. Next up,

043Sarah Beckett. Hi. Hi, my name is Sarah Beckett. Um, I'm a Fresno Middle parent, and I'm a member of our PTO. I attended last week's Enrollment Committee meeting, where I observed the committee pushing back on what a lot of us parents believe is an overly aggressive timeline. I also observed the consultant from School Leaders steering the Enrollment Committee with a heavy hand, and it made me question if any of these consultants have brought other solutions to the table besides school closures. I'm concerned- Sarah. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah. I'm, I'm concerned we're getting tunnel vision about closures. Have you explored other solutions? I have to assume that you haven't, since no alternatives have been presented to the community, and yet we know they exist. I want to point your attention to the Las Virgenes

044Unified School District, which recently used a creative approach to tackle their deficit. They focused not on school closures, but on revenue generating. As one article said, "A dollar raised avoids a dollar cut." For example, they worked on insurance reform by taking a, a critical review of the plans that they had been using. They shopped around, and that yielded a million dollars a year in savings without cutting employee benefits or protections. They aligned attendance recovery with ELOP funds, and they launched something called LVUSD Plus. It's a hybrid enrichment initiative of no-cost after-school care to low-income families, as well as tuition-based participation from other families. They're projecting a million-dollar annual net positive through this program. And on the subject of attendance, we learned last week that if high school attendance went up just one percent, that could

045mean eight hundred thousand dollars more a year. We know that MTSS staff are critical to helping students with low attendance, yet they're being cut. Have you explored investing in MTSS staff to improve our high school students' attendance? And for our younger kids, a major cause of absence is illness. Um, wondering have you explored ways to curb those absences? Uh, this is sort of random, but in two thousand and nine, a Danish nurse created a pilot program that focused on student handwashing three times a day. Some schools do one time a day, some schools do none. Um, they saw a sixty-six percent decline in students absent for four days or more, and a twenty percent increase in students with zero absences. So what if we could get all of our elementary school's attendance up just a

046few percentage points each? How much money would that bring in? My point is, there are other options worth exploring. Um, you've heard some of them: improving attendance, redrawing boundaries, pricing out K to eight programs, streamlining administrative costs, and yet you're being told to rush.And you're being asked to rely on data brought to you, by consultants whose only solution has been to close our schools. We are asking the board to slow down. Let's keep working on this problem together. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Katie Moore. Good evening. Uh, I'm gonna talk pretty fast, so try to keep up. Um, it's not news to me or any parent or teacher that's sitting behind me, and if you've done your homework, it's not news to you too that, Morongo Valley Elementary has some of the best attendance

047rates, in the district for the previous three years that my students have attended. I say students because I'm not just a parent, one of which is in the brand-new ESN program that is thriving at Morongo Elementary, but I've also run with the herd at Morongo Valley as their PE teacher. I've lived in the same community that I have the honor of teaching and growing with. Like many of my colleagues over the fourteen years in teaching, I strive to align student strengths, needs, to ensure equitable access to rigorous content. What I say next is not simply hard to understand, but the goal of equity and education will not happen if children are forced to consolidate. There's zero positive meta-analysis that shows sleep-deprived children who are overstimulated from an hour less ride commute, walking into classrooms, especially

048mine, ready to thrive. In fact, they're being set up to fail by the very district that they enrolled. Some in our district will continue to sell and glamorize consolidation as reinvestment for the future, but I wanna be clear. Parents are not fighting against change. We're fighting against harm, harm to our children, socially, emotionally, developmentally, and academically. Five-year-olds on a bus for sixty minutes, that is not equity. That is certainly not student-centered decision-making. Yucca Valley High School students that bus from Morongo have a twelve percent lower attendance rate than non-bus riders that attend Yucca Valley High School. Let's focus on that number for a second. Twelve percent attendance deficit every year for the course of an elementary school student's duration at school is seventy-two percent worth of instructional access across years. Get this number. That's a

049hund-- that's eighteen hundred and sixty-six minutes. That's a deficit of hours of instruction lost, extracurricular learning, and mental health by the time the student reaches fourth grade. Eighteen hundred and sixty-six hours, okay, by the time the student is nine. Take your time. Consider that. The question I ask is simple: How does closing schools with a-- absence with the best attendance rates improve student outcomes and stabilize district finances? Why are we discussing closures before we've had and seen and discussed real alternatives and real solutions? How exactly do longer transportation distances increase our attendance rather than decrease it, which is money out of pocket? And finally, what plan do we have to offset the financial and logistic hardship that this places on families within my community? These are not abstract questions, and they're certainly not rhetorical. These

050are real families with real children, and closing schools has real generational consequences. Our kids deserve decisions that are grounded in evidence and transparency, which has not been given to the committee to take its time and reevaluate. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you once again. Next up, Chelsea Chadwick. Good evening. Um, I'm also gonna talk fast. Good evening, all. Um, last October, I stood here asking for transparency and a pause as you considered a contract with School Leaders. District reps promised a process we could trust. Yet, the one hundred and ninety-one thousand dollar contract was approved immediately with no explanation as to why School Leaders' data would be any more reliable than the flawed Schoolbox report from last April. Before that vote, Mr. Daniels, said that a hundred and ninety-one K would come from the developer

051fee fund. Do you remember that? It was portrayed as money from big developers. In reality, homeowners pay most of those fees at a rate six times higher than commercial projects. I personally paid thousands of dollars into that fund when I built my home here last year. By law, developer fees can only be used to expand school capacity, and only after a Nexus Justification Study proves the district lacks room for the incoming students from the new housing, which makes sense. Our district's last Nexus Justification Study was in two thousand and fifteen, and it found that total elementary capacity was five thousand thirty-five students, with schools already over-enrolled by a hundred and twenty-nine. They projected a two thousand student increase by twenty thirty-five, which justified collecting developer fees, right? Yet, today, your consultants, School Leaders, claim that

052elementary capacity is eight thousand and eighty-eight, a difference of more than three thousand seats, despite no campus expansions taking place since two thousand and fifteen. Now, they project seven hundred and twenty-five fewer students by twenty thirty-two, and those numbers are being used to justify closing schools. Do you see the contradiction? You collect millions from homeowners claiming there isn't enough space, and then hire consultants using different numbers to claim we're fifty percent enrolled, and we should close schoolsAnd here's the irony. The consultants producing this closure narrative are being paid from the same fund that only exists because it was justified that there wasn't enough space, and it only exists to expand capacity. That's just not morally wrong, I believe, it is legally indefensible. The enrollment process, the enrollment committee process, has been equally flawed, but Stephanie

053went into it already, so I won't add that. I will just say that it's a bit embarrassing for this district and insulting to parents and the committee to be asked to do something without enough information. And so here's what I'm asking. Stop using manipulated data to justify closures. Use one set of capacity numbers, please. Not low numbers when you just wanna justify collecting money, and then altered high numbers when you wanna justify closing schools. Stop paying school leaders from SchoolWorks from that fee as well. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Susan Todd. Hi. So with all the recent discussion about budget cuts and the possibility of reducing staff, you're-- I'm asking whether the district is also taking a careful look at spending in other areas. Um, at times it appears that action items, example being

054hiring outside vendors, contract workers creating more district positions at the district level and cutting positions at site levels, come before the board and are approved without much discussion about whether those expenditures truly benefit students. Was it necessary to spend money rebranding the district schools when we're now talking about laying off staff? The district pro-- you know, provides promotional items and giveaways for the community, and you had the school sites rebranded, but nothing's been provided to the school for swag to promote their site like the district promotes themselves. At the same time, the district is investing heavily in the TK programs. Early education is extremely important, but the feeling is, is that the focus has been on creating a good look by purchasing furniture and equip-- materials and equipment rather on staffing and support. What students

055benefit most from are caring adults, people who can help redirect behavior, provide early intervention, and build strong foundations for learning in TK and kindergarten. Interventions aren't necessarily offered for them through other avenues, so why aren't we supporting them with adults instead of things? It feels like the amount of screen time students experience during the day, that the focus is more on how the district appears with test scores rather than how students are actually experiencing school. More screen time doesn't help students with social emotional needs, resiliency, or anything else that a student may need outside of a computer. That's what people are for. Our community elected this board to represent the needs of the students and the families. Right now, I'm asking for a stronger focus on investing in people, hiring more staff, especially individuals from

056our own community that would strengthen the relationships in the community, help address behavior concerns with the students, and support the students better all the way around. There are-- I have questions about the bond that the community worked hard to pass for MUSD. I've seen little visible progress or communication about assessments or next steps. Uh, we have panorama surveys in the fall and spring for students, staff, and families. If transparency is a priority, the results of those surveys should be shared publicly via website, Facebook, emails, so the community can better understand what students and staff are experiencing across our schools. You would have more participation if the community saw some transparency. Our comm-- I care deeply about these students. Our community does. We simply wanna see resources used in ways that directly support them every day.

057At the end of the day, students don't learn from rebranding, swag, or furniture, they learn from people. If we truly want to support our students, we need to start investing in the people who serve them every day. Our community didn't elect you to make our schools better. We elected you to make them better for our students. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Yahaira Familia. Good evening, everyone. My name is Yahaira Familia, and both of my children attend Fernley Hills Elementary School. Last week at the Enrollment Committee meeting, we spoke about our twenty-five-year-old school boundaries. To put that in perspective, twenty-five years ago, George W. Bush had just become president, Eminem won a Grammy for Best Rap Album, and the first iPod had just been released. And here in our own community, we didn't even have

058a Home Depot, a Walmart Supercenter, or Starbucks yet. Our boundaries have dramatically since then, yet our school boundaries remain exactly the same, unchanged and outdated. When boundaries stay frozen in time, enrollment imbalances are inevitable. Some schools become overcrowded while others are under-enrolled, and then those numbers are used to justify closures. But before we close our schools, shouldn't we first fix the system that helped create the imbalance? Closing a school is permanent. Redrawing boundaries is proactive. Many classes at Ornaga already have high student-teacher ratios. What happens to class size, teacher attention, and student support if that school is asked to absorb students from Fernley Hills? I attended, I attended another school with very large classes and limited resources, and I can personally speak to the long-term negative impact it has on students.That will be my next

059speech, for instance. If enrollment imbalances exist, the responsible first step is to modernize boundaries that were designed for a very different community. Countless examples, such as Bear Creek Elementary in Boulder and Minnesota's Forest Lake Area School District, have done exactly that. They updated boundaries to balance enrollment and stabilize neighborhood schools. Boundaries should be redrawn before schools are closed, not after. I believe I can speak for Fern Hill parents when I say that every school being discussed serves an important role in its community. Each one matters, and closing any of them have serious short and long-term consequences. As a Fern Hill parent, something that truly baffled me at the last meeting was that academic performance wasn't even a factor in the original consolidation matrix. You know that exploding head emoji? That is how I felt last

060week. How can a distinguished school with strong attendance and excellent academic results be on the chopping block? Dr. Vargas spoke last week about the potential of opening K-eight academies in Maverick schools once these schools were closed. No need. I got this. You have an excellent model to work with already, and to make it easier for you, our parents agree that we should become K-eight. If this decision is being treated like a business decision, then performance should matter. In any organization, when tough cuts are considered, performance is one of the first things evaluated. Ignoring the success of Fern Hill feels like a dismissal of the tremendous effort our students, teachers, administrators, and parents have put in. We are doing everything right, and yet we're still potentially being dismantled. There are clear flaws in this process. I

061hope the district would go back to the drawing board and focus on creative solutions, not closures. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Katie Moore. I think we could have done a lot better. I mean, I can talk all day if I have to. So next we'll have, let's see, Geneva Winas. Sorry. Hello. My name is Geneva Winans. I am a physical therapist and mother to a seven-year-old who attends Fern Hill Elementary School. I'm here to highlight the impact of increased school bus ride times for elementary school students. I think we want all our students to arrive to school safely, calmly, and ready to learn. This district faces unique challenges in that we are rural, and in comparison to urban and metropolitan areas, we usually have to tribal-- travel farther to access services. So to start,

062how far are the kids going by bus right now? Students from Landers Elementary ride the bus for fifty-three minutes. Morongo Valley Elementary School students ride the bus for forty-two minutes. Students from Morongo Valley attending Yucca Valley High School board the bus at five fifty-five AM and arrive to Yucca Valley High School at six fifty-five AM, so one hour. Fifteen elementary school students at Morongo Valley El currently ride the bus. The ride time to reach the suggested receiving school of Yucca Valley is ninety minutes. For these fifteen elementary school students, this could mean boarding the bus at five twenty-five AM. This prospective change could cause these students to wake at four in the morning in order to access elementary school education. What is the effect of increasing bus ride times on elementary school students? Over the

063short term, longer rides can lead to behavioral issues, fatigue with decreased extracurricular participation, and potential safety concerns. According to the Keck School of Medicine, the long-term effects of long bus rides include significantly reduced physical activity because they're sitting on a bus for three hours a day, chronic sleep deprivation, forty-five-minute commutes can cut sleep by one hour, higher rates of chronic absenteeism in students, twelve percent for hour-plus rides, an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure, and depression due to prolonged sedentary stress. The National Collaborative on Education and Health looked at the effect of frequent absences and child school success. Children who are chronically absent in both kindergarten and first grade are much less likely to be reading at grade level by third grade. And for these students who are not reading at grade level by

064third grade are more likely to drop out of high school. This speech is long and will be continued by another person, but I want to discuss increased bus ride times and IEPs. For those of us unfamiliar, an IEP is an individualized education program supported by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. IDEA Section three hundred point three four mandates that transportation to and from school and ADA access be provided by students with IEPs. So we'll continue. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up, Sarah. Yeah, Sarah Lynchance. Hi. I'm continuing Geneva's speech on transportation. Um, so IDEA Section three hundred point three four mandates that transportation to and from school and ADA access be provided to students with IEPs. IEPs are designed to ensure that children who are eligible for special education services have

065individualized and well-defined objectives for meeting educational and functional goals If a student's disability makes a long commute difficult, the district may be in violation of the legal right to free appropriate public education, or FAPE. Two arguments to highlight. One, extension of the school day. For a student with a special need-- with special needs, the school day begins the moment they ride the bus. A stressful ninety, ninety-minute commute can leave a student dysregulated and unavailable for learning for, for up to forty-five minutes after their arrival, effectively shortening their instructional day. Two, individualized needs. If a long bus ride affects a student's health and behavior, the IEP team must consider shorter routes with specialized transportation at a higher cost. Longer school bus rides will affect, will affect toileting in elementary students. Research indicates children should empty their

066bladders every two to three hours to prevent urinary tract infections and lower urinary tract symptoms. A ninety-minute ride, combined with time spent waiting for the bus and the start of the school day, easily exceeds this window. If a student experiences a bathroom in-- accident on a long bus ride, the resulting embarrassment often leads to school avoidance, a contributor to chronic absenteeism. Students are not allowed to eat on the bus, and longer bus rides can also present health concerns for students with type one diabetes, hy-hypoglycemia, and epilepsy. The issue of potential and possible school consolidation is multifaceted and complex, and I would like to s-to stay, solution-oriented on this topic. I pose the following questions to support positive change: What would it take to make the current situation better for high school students and prevent longer

067bus rides for our elementary schoolers? Can the route be changed? What is required to add a bus aide? Can students be allowed to eat on the bus? It is my hope that the school district can find creative solutions to support access to free, appropriate public education without taking away from educational minutes and with reasonable transportation times suggested to be one hour or less in the state of California. Thank you. Thank you. We will now have Margo Joubert on a separate item. Good evening again. I am here to address concerns of not having enough subs. I will use Onaga as an example. In February, we had an average of thirteen staff absences every day. Many times to fill those positions, we have to either cancel interventions so a class can be covered, or admin has to

068stop doing their job to cover a class, or the MTSS teacher help us pull to cover, or we split classes, or sometimes we had to do all of those in one day. And by the way, when classes are split, it costs the site four hundred dollars out of pocket to pay for those teachers that had to take on the extra kids. That takes money from our school's budget that could be used for helping kids in other ways. I wanna focus on solutions that could help. One, the district could improve outreach to attract more subs, and the HR department could make the onboarding process much quicker to get these subs in the classroom. Two, sites need to support the subs that we already have. For example, we have subs that won't return to Onaga because behaviors

069are so bad, and they aren't being supported when they call for help. What tools and resources are subs being provided to be successful? Solution three, a district in Color-Colorado assigns their assistant superintendents and district office staff to a school every week, not for a glorified walkthrough, but to roll up their sleeves, jump in and help, subbing, pulling kids that need extra help, supervising on the playground and more. Implementing something similar could really relieve the stress of our sub shortage. Four, examine the root cause of why are there so many staff absences. Could it be that improving working conditions and staff morale could lead to less sub days? And last, stop pulling teachers out of the classroom for training. It is contributing to the daily vacancies. Sometimes the district scheduling has two different trainings going on

070in the same day, like a TK and a writing. Let's find alternative approaches for teacher trainings and stop pulling us out of the classroom. Board, I hope that you are willing to work with the district to help with these concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Next, Callie Neiman. Good evening. I'm Callie Neiman, and I wanted to give you my perspective on the MUSD Enrollment Committee meetings as a Friendly Hills parent, co-VP of our PTO, and member of Student Site Council. I addressed the school board last June about the importance of saving our schools, and I applied to the Enrollment Committee. They should be at all school board meetings to report their progress, and I don't see them here or on the agenda. From attending every Enrollment Committee meeting myself, it's clear they're not getting crucial data

071quickly enough to make an informed recommendation on school closures to the school board by May twelfth. The Enrollment Committee agreed and conveyed these concerns to Dr. Vargas, the cabinet, and school leaders on March fourth after hearing many of our speakers proving how they're being rushed. They have the right to slow this process down, and that's what they chose to do last week, our first victory in this long battle. The enrollment committee's current three-month timeline to make a recommendation feels as though their task is performative in checking a box in California legal requirements to close schools. Additionally, I was told by MUSD that the committee would formulate their own opinion on which school should be closed, if any. Suddenly, by meeting two, they were given a list of consolidation sites without forming their own conclusions. Now

072they're being asked by school leaders to rank the appearance of schools by March eighteenth when they only spent a few minutes at each school on February twenty-first. How could their answers possibly be accurate, especially when they were not visiting on a school day? We filmed how long they were at Friendly Hills, and it was thirteen minutes. Just thirteen minutes and one month later to recommend the fate of MUSD's best performing school. Parents from Arango El confirmed their visit was also brief, and students from both schools followed the committee holding posters in support of their school on a Saturday. Next, Friendly Hills parents attended the February twenty-fourth Measure C school board study session. Measure C was passed by voters gifting MUSD over eighty-eight million for construction projects. Shade structures were promised to ten schools. The board

073could have approved these permanent structures, but under David Daniels' direction, they decided to table the approval until June when they, quote, "Will have a better idea about school closures," and inferred that, "We don't wanna spend money on three schools that could close. When you're in D.C. next month, please meet with legislators who actually help fund our schools and please apply for more grants." David Daniels also said they should all be concerned about how the optics would appear to the public if they granted shade structures to some schools and not others, and board members agreed. Landers El had zero shade structures to protect their students from exposure. If you're so concerned about the optics of how Measure C funds are spent, how will the optics look to the public when schools are closed? MUSD will never

074pass another bond measure again. The public will never forget that they were bait and switched while funds were misappropriated. This delay in approving the shade structures also reveals two prerogatives. Firstly, the board and cabinet admitted on February twenty-fourth that they intend to make a decision on closures in June. Secondly, we know they would need to keep the enrollment committee on track to do so when it's clear they're being pressured to make a decision. Know that we built a coalition of a hundred and twenty-five MUSD parents united against school closures, and we will continue to fight and grow in numbers. Thank you. Next up, Lena Skinner. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'd like to share my personal experience with Friendly Hills Elementary and highlight a theme that was mentioned several times during last

075week's enrollment committee, committee meeting. My name is Lena, and I grew up five minutes from here. I attended Friendly Hills from kindergarten through sixth grade and graduated in 1997. It was the first school I ever attended. It was more than a school, it was a foundation, a place where I set my roots. I built friendships that are still strong, and I remain in touch with former teachers who helped shape who I am today. Back in the 1980s, as we all know, this was pre at-home internet and information at our fingertips. My parents took a week off from work and drove from Northern California to visit all the elementary schools in person prior to moving here. After visiting, my parents decided on Friendly Hills for my brothers and I to attend. After elementary school, I attended

076Valle Cantanza and then followed by Napa High. Three weeks after graduating, I was out of here, believing that I'd never return to live, only to visit my family. However, as with many things in life, priorities and perspectives change over time. In twenty twenty-one, my husband and I chose to move back with our then one-year-old daughter because we wanted to raise her here in a smaller, quieter, and safe community. I knew without a doubt that when the time came that she would be going to Friendly Hills. Today, my mom still lives in the same house five minutes from here and helps me pick up my daughter, who is now in kindergarten . I also have a three-month-old son, and I fully intend to send him to Friendly Hills, just like my daughter and just like me.

077As mentioned last week during the public speeches, parents are still choosing to put their kids at Friendly Hills based on its historically well-performing reputation. Just last year, Friendly Hills was named a California Distinguished School. It's a nice title, but what does that really mean, and how does a school qualify? First of all, it's only five to ten percent of California's public schools that are given this award. It is defined as a prestigious honor that recognizes schools who demonstrate ex-expectational student performance and success in closing achievement gaps. Schools are selected by analyzing data with a focus on demonstrating excellence and growth in academic achievement and ensuring a positive school climate. If this is a school that demonstrates excellence in academic growth and student success, we should be doing everything we can do to preserve it and

078strengthen it and not to close it. Before making a permanent decision to close these schools, I urge you to fully explore other solutions. The public has given a multitude of different options. If enrollment numbers are a concern, expanding Friendly Hills into a K through eight campus could help strengthen those numbers. These schools should be supported and not eliminated. As both a former student and a current parent, I respectfully ask you to consider every possible path to keep Friendly Hills and our schools here in this community open. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Carolyn Riggs. My name is Carolyn Riggs. Um... I wanna lead with something I heard from the enrollment committee last week. I've been attending them as a parent of a Friendly Hills student. Um, if we have better schools, we attract more people.

079This is absolutely true. I'm an example of this. Um, I moved out here during the pandemic, had a baby, and then decided to stay. Made an active decision based on Friendly Hills Elementary School. My kid has been there for TK and is currently enrolled in kindergarten. And I am a parent who, if Friendly Hills were close-- were closed, would leave the district. I would, I would either homeschool or possibly leave Morongo Valley, and I'm not alone in this. I've talked to many parents who are motivated by the performance of our schools and who are... And, and this-- And our residency is precarious. It's based on our s-- love of our school. Our school works. We have such a beautiful community. And, as everyone's mentioned, consolidation leads to a reduction in quality. It leads to a

080reduction in quality. I don't wanna put my kid in a transition situation, like crammed into these classrooms that have been proven to be over, over, packed anyways. Let's see. Sorry. Um, okay. I, I have to say, I'm-- I wanna... I know we can find some creative solutions. We're just parents. We're not, we're not professional administrators. However, the lack of preparation I saw from Dr. Vargas, Dr. Gutierrez, and Mr. Daniels was frankly insulting to the committee and I thought, to myself as a, as a taxpayer and as a parent. Um, you know, a slide that showed a caterpillar turning into a butterfly that said, "Change is hard." Give me a break. Please do not insult our intelligence and waste our time. There have got to be better solutions, and that kind of display has shown that,

081that we're not being respected. And our children, the way the children were talked of in these meetings was dehumanizing, truly. Turning kids into stickers, into M&M's. Talking about children as generating funds. Children generate fu-- Yeah, children generate funds. They're, they're also humans. Come on, you guys. The, like... Thank you. Sorry. I wanted to stay positive, but Thank you. That concludes the non-agendized public comment. All the rest will be addressed as the particular item on the agenda comes up. So with that, we have the adoption of the consent agenda. Do we have any items for further discussion or to pull? There's a pull for further discussion. No? I had just one, which was, C two, number three, which was the ELOP Science Camp. I just had a few questions on that. So can I get a

082motion? There's no other items to pull? Okay. Can I get a motion? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Pete. I second Shannon and DX. So may I get a motion to approve the consent agenda, outside of those two items that have been pulled for further discussion? I so move. Second. Moved by Pete, second by Bianca. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Five zero. Okay, so I'm gonna start off with the consent. It will be the ELOP Science Camp, and I'm not sure. Sally, do you-- Sorry, I don't wanna put you on the spot, but I guess- I'm used to it. It's okay. Hi. Hi. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate that. Um, just I had a few questions written down when I, when I saw your proposal, and I'm not against it. I'm just kind

083of curious. No. Does this replace the sixth grade science camps that we currently have at each site? So what you're seeing on here is our request for proposal and also a request for a science camp, which will move fifth to eighth grade. Fifth to eighth grade. And so because we're attempting to move into junior high, we'd like to offer it to more students. And so that would move us from fifth and sixth to fifth through eighth. Okay. So that's... Okay. So it's expanding- Mm-hmm. -the number of students. Okay, that's great. Um, and then I saw it's for-- I always see the projections that it says for three hundred and sixty-five students. Is there a minimum? Is there a refund if we are under that number? So we give them finalized numbers about a month before

084we go. And they adjust accordingly? Mm-hmm. Okay. And then last thing, proposal is for one hundred and seventy-one thousand and seventy-five dollars at three hundred and sixty-five students. Is the busing an additional expense on top of that? It is. It's not a large expense, though. Okay. It's very minimal. Okay. Well, I'm excited to hear that you're looking to Stanford, so... Yeah. It-- That'll be the other thing you see on there for the RFP. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions about the science camp? I'm excited to see this so, far in advance. Yes. It's exciting. I am too. So one other thing. Historically, sixth grade has had to fund it themselves. Yes. Which puts a lot of pressure on a lot of our students' families. So this- And the administrators, and the administrators, and the teacher who's

085sending everybody. Oh, yeah. I don't want to discount that. Yeah. I'm just saying that purely the financial piece for an individual, and it-- for somebody not to be able to go has always been a struggle of mine. I don't like that. So this would eliminate that, and the district would be funding that through ELOP. Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Bravo. Okay. Matt. Okay. My, my question is, is probably pretty simple for you. Are we continuing the high school student component with ELOP? Yes. We had a-- we, we started a little later than anticipated this year, but yes, they are currently placed and working. So they'll be there when we- Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Even after we hire these, people. Yes. So, so high school students count in our student counts. So they don't, they don't replace, a tutor

086per se. That's what I thought. Thank you. They assist. Any other questions on that item or discussion? All right. May I get a motion to approve item two? I guess it's three ayes, the ELOP science camp. So moved. Second. Moved by Roberta, second by Pete. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any nays? Five zero. And then item D under business services X, so it's ten, authorization for RFP twenty-six dash zero zero zero, ELOP after-school staffing services for Watson, Tenet, and Twain and Junior for twenty twenty-six/twenty twenty-seven. May I get a motion? So moved. Second. May I give that one, Pete as a second, Bianca as the motion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any nays? Five zero. Thank you. Next up will be our action items. Um, each year we have to approve this. So count form

087two C, this-- the board of education is requested to approve county forms addressing delegation of authority as follows. That delegation will now be David Daniels. May I get a motion to approve form two C? So moved. Second. Moved by Roberta, second by Bianca? Yeah. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any nays? Five zero. Thank you. Next item would be action item ten B, and we do have one public comment. And that is Alexandra Altshuler. Hello, my name is Alexandra Altshuler. I'm a volunteer parent and also an budget auditor. So I'm gonna talk about the budget a little bit. So you guys have been talking about the budget deficit, all of that stuff. So I have been looking through the interim report as well as unaudited options from the past years. So what I can tell, so

088even though you're claiming that we are-- you are facing the structural deficit, you are spending like it doesn't happen. And at the same time, you're saying we're supposed to consolidate schools or build an art center, which is absolutely detached from reality, on my opinion. So for example, in two thousand twenty-four to two thousand twenty-five, the district spent four hundred fifty-nine thousand for travel and conferences. It is not counting the various, fees, other fees like membership fees. So in this year, it's like spend projected fi- four hundred thousand. Of course, it's fifty-five thousand less, but where are you guys traveling? Another thing is administrative spendings. So it is per year, ten million dollars. And about two millions, it says superintendent's cabinet. So if you say the changes are hard but necessary, you guys got to start

089with yourselves. So when you say to the enrollment committee to do their homework, I wanna ask you, did you do yours? Thank you. Thank you. May I get a motion to certify that MUSD can meet its financial obligation for the current fiscal year twenty five-twenty six and two subsequent fiscal years as outlined in the second interim budget report? May I get a motion? I so move. Second. Moved by Pete, second by Bianca. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Five zero. Next up is the math curriculum, and we do have another, public comment, which is Jen Menos. Good evening. Um, I wanted to speak about the math curriculum adoption that I know you guys are voting on tonight. Um, I was really excited when I found out that we were getting new math curriculum, as the

090one that we're currently using has been around since I first started teaching eleven years ago. Um, I was even more excited when I found out that we were being given the opportunity to pilot these math curriculums.Um, however, the excitement was short-lived. I first found out that the district had whittled down the publishers that we would be presented, from nineteen to only six. Um, and there was no math teachers there at that publisher fair when they decided which six we would be presented with. Um, and then the communication to our administration and the people who potentially wanted to pilot the curriculums was not clear and timely, so that when it came time to go to the publisher fairs, not all the teachers that wanted, to do it were still able to. Um, I still took away

091time from my students to listen to the six presentations. I filled out the rubrics that were given to me, which coincidentally turned out to be useless because every curriculum that we heard had to meet all the standards that were listed on the rubric. So then we quickly shifted to basically taking those six curriculums and numbering them in the order of our preference, one through six. And from that, the district allowed us to pilot three of those curriculums. Um, we had already gotten rid of curriculums that I would have liked to have piloted, including and most importantly, McGraw Hill. Um, next, we were given a short time frame with which to pilot. It took place in this weird time frame between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. We only had one week notice of when we had to

092begin piloting, and sometimes we didn't receive materials until the day that we were supposed to start teaching with the materials, with no time consideration that we needed to actually learn the curriculum and plan our lessons. There was little time for discourse between other teachers from other sites that were piloting and not equal representation from all schools in all grade levels. And in the end, I did not feel confident in making a decision as to which curriculum would be best. That said, I am grateful that the district allows our union members to vote on which curriculum they prefer, and I'm glad we did have an opportunity to pilot. However, I'm sad and frustrated to see that we are going to be recommending three different publishers tonight. One for K through five, another through-- for six through

093eight, and then a separate one for grades nine through twelve, meaning there's gonna be no consistency as students move from elementary to middle to high school. And like with other things, I just wish that we would not have been on such a time crunch where we are rushing to make decisions, important decisions, because we're up against a deadline. And I hope that the district will use this as a learning opportunity and start the process much earlier as we prepare to adopt a new LA-- ELA curriculum and in the future, perhaps science and social studies. Thank you. I actually did have a question written down when I was going through the agenda, and, I guess it'd be a three C and Amy question. Um, how much favorability what-- were there on the different grade levels as

094far as what was put out to the membership? Was it overwhelming that they liked these particular publishers, or do we have any of those numbers? Off the top of my head, I know for elementary it translated to about sixty percent for the one that is being recommended. Um, close to sixty percent. Twenty-three percent, twenty-five percent roughly for the other two. And I don't have the numbers for middle and high school off the top of my head. Marcella can provide them to you. So, for middle school, we had McGraw Hill favored at eighty-one point five percent. Uh, Carnegie Learning, eleven point one percent. And Houghton Mifflin, seven point four percent. That was middle. And then high school... High school, we had sixty percent Carnegie Learning, twenty-five percent McGraw Hill, fifteen percent Savage. Thank you. Any other

095questions from the board? Can you remind us how many teachers or staff participated in the process for this selection? I'm sorry. To make you pull out the whiteboard. So... For elementary, we had twenty-seven teachers district-wide. Was, was each site represented? Yes. Okay. And how many- We had at least one or multiple teachers per site. And how-- And of those twenty-- Those are the twenty-seven that took part in the piloting or- Correct. Or what about the initial-- 'Cause I know initially, didn't they get to go to the fair to choose or how did that work? Yes. The fair was held on the second day of school, so that made it a little challenging. So we did attend. There was, I believe, six of us, and we did have an elementary teacher representative, from our ACE program.

096Oh, got it. And just to add a little bit more information, we were only given three spots for the county. And so we did push a little bit more. We were waitlisted, and in the end, we were given an additional three spots. And so we were competing against- So you're saying that, at the county level, they, they narrowed it down? And we had- At the county level, we initially had three spots. We could take three members. Okay. Yes. So- And then the voting members as So we did connect with MTA to identify a representative. I believe that that's when the A's teacher came into participating. It was who we recommended. And then we utilized one of our teachers on special assignment who had a math background from secondary to be the secondary one. So we

097put a site administrator and a couple of district, a, a couple of district representatives. So this, this happened on the second and third day of school, which made it a little bit difficult, for staff to be very willing to go Sure. Yeah. Um, I have a question. Yes, go ahead, Roberta. No, go ahead. I have no question. Go ahead. Mm-hmm. No, I just, think it was a legitimate qu- So we have three different publishers. Do we feel like those flow well? So I'm fifth grade, then I go to the middle school. I mean, is there that much of a differentiation as far as, like, the way the curriculum and the way it's taught? Is it gonna flow well, I guess, from- Common ... you know, elementary school, middle school, to high school, or do we

098disconnect? What I can say is that all of the publishers that made it to the state list have to meet certain criteria. And so, absolutely, I think that we all agree that the number one preference would have been that we choose one. However, we will also try and balance that demand, highly request that we, we want to be inclusive of teacher input and voice. And so we knew going into this that this was a potential, that if we followed this process, that we could potentially come out to three. So all of this that use, the state criteria, they're based on the math framework. And so the new elements that are woven into elementary will be evident into the middle and be evident into the high school because they have to follow the math framework. And

099so the conceptual teaching and learning that is now part of our math curriculum will be evident across all, all levels. However, of course, you know, we would have liked to have had one publisher for all the different levels. Roberta, did you have a question? Um, I shared that initial concern when I saw there's three different publishers. That I, in my mind it was very standards-based, and it's not the curriculum that... That's the important part. The important part is the teacher following those standards. And if all of these different ones have standards in them, then I didn't see that as real big problem. Um, my question is the legitimacy of the timeline, because from the very beginning, I looked at that timeline and felt like it wasn't enough time. And I'm asking, couldn't this have been

100over a couple of years? I mean, couldn't it have been a longer timeline? Because as a teacher, I know that I always felt pressure to get that in as quickly as possible without really being able-- didn't have the time to explore the materials like I would've wanted to. Um, so is that a possibility that when we are adopting a new curriculum, that it can be spaced over a couple of... We've known for years that we were gonna have to have a new math curriculum. Absolutely. What is the-- What are the drawbacks? What are the limitations of that? So we definitely do agree that having a, a longer timeline would have been beneficial. The earliest that we could have begun this process was November. Uh, that is when that list was actually finalized. So even when

101we went to state, some of them-- some of the publishers had already received, conditional approvals. Uh, you know, the state had already said, "Yes, you're going to be in the list," but it had not been completely finalized. That is why the piloting actually began. Um, we started meeting with the six that we knew were already on the list and had already been vetted by the state. The piloting began in November. Um, what we're trying to leverage is, some funding that is allowable for this use, this year to support with our fiscal situation. That was what added a little bit of pressure. But we've already talked about moving into the ELA adoption. Um, we've had some initial discussions about holding a call next year to go through the process and not make a decision until the

102following year. So it would be a process that would be lengthened. We wouldn't have that constraint of time or that pressure of trying to maximize the funds. Um, we do see the benefit of having a longer process in place. And, and we're hoping too that now that individuals have seen the process and they understand, the role of the individuals that come to the committee, that we also are able to generate more excitement and have more people participate, so that we have more buy-in as we continue the process. I'm more concerned about what's happening right now with the rushed process that we've been in. How to rectify that? What to do about it? I feel the same way. Having been a teacher, I, I, I know what they need, and I know that we've adopted some

103things that I was truly unhappy with when I was teaching. And so I, I-- we definitely need to have the most amount of time to be able to work through these curriculums Um, as well as the teachers being able to have that long enough to be able to plan. That was huge. That's a, that's a huge deal. Um, again, I think we need a very long time. I, I'm struggling with this right now, especially listening to someone speaking about it. Those are real agent concerns for me, that they're stuck with these for a very long period of time. Yeah. Would the alternative be waiting another year to adopt math curriculum? And would this- My question. Our books are so far out of date right now. We cannot get replacements, and we have to pay three

104hundred thousand dollars a year per level to continue to be able to access just the digital resources for the students, the teachers editions for the teachers. Because the state has waited three years to be out-- to, to, to finish the framework. So when the list doesn't come out until November, and you can't even begin to get-- And the publisher didn't even have a sample. When I was talking to the secretary, they didn't have a sample for us to see, even though that we were three years in arrears, and we were gonna be adopting it here. And now the money that has been set aside for the textbook adoption is expiring this year. That is the perfect storm of not good for the teachers to be able to have the time, obviously. This isn't something that

105we would have wanted, but we're under three different guns, where we can't get any replacement books because they're so old and out of date. We still have to continue to pay the three hundred thousand dollars a year for the digital resources for the, the teachers to have teachers editions and digital resources over and above, if we could find the books. And the money that is being s-set aside to pay for the books is expiring this year. Amy, you probably know best. When was the last time, we adopted math curriculum? Or how old is the current curriculum, so See, Jen Pinota said eleven years. I thought it was thirteen, but it could be eleven. But it's, it, it's three years past shelf date, which is at least eleven years old. So the point is it's far

106gone. It-- These are way past shelf life. And again, when you can't find the books to replace missing books that kids have damaged or lost, and you can't get the digital resources for the kids to have online or their teacher's editions, it's a real problem. And we really thought that the state would have something for us last year, and they did not. And then this year, to have to wait until November, the secondary set doesn't have to have a list. You know, approved list, the elementary does. However, in the secondary round, they only had two publishers at first. We were able to get a third one on, we said they could pro-provide us some sample exams the teachers would be able to interact with. So not to play softball, but I'm just telling you the

107reality of the situation that Instructional Services has been under to try to get things into the hands of teachers for them to be able to at least vote, you know, to make a decision, albeit not perfect. Um, I would love to tell you that this could be rectified next year for ELA because we are allegedly adopting ELA next year. It is, it is what is routine. You know, it is the, the next one up. But again, Marcella, Gracie, we would have to see whether there's anything even been put out yet by the state, which to my knowledge right now, there is not. So we hope, but we're in a different situation because ELA is not so far out of date. You understand what I'm saying? Math is becoming a real issue with getting, getting teachers

108replaced with the service. Ms. Tabone. So I just wanna reiterate that good teaching doesn't come from textbooks. It comes from our standards-based curriculums. When we have these, how the standards in them is up to good teaching to deliver it to our students. So I find a bit of comfort in that, that it's not just the textbooks, it's still good teaching. Any other questions? Sorry, go ahead, Pete. Uh, is this too early to get a feel for staff development for next year for s-for, math? Or you're not, not to be-- not there yet? We're there. Okay. No, we are there. Good. And we have had some discussions with MTA about securing potentially a date before the end of the year releases, so that we can get it in teachers' hands before they leave into the summer.

109Um, also providing another opportunity for anyone that may have missed it for whatever reason in August, and then new hires just in early in the year when the year begins. And then also embedding within, the publishers, there's embedded professional development to continue once the year starts. And I'm sure there's gonna be follow-up during the course of the, the application. And I'm assuming these publishers will either train-- send you a train the trainer where it may not be as effective, or what is that? Initially, it would be they are training all staff. Initially. Okay. Uh, so year one, it is all them with their, their trainers that they bring on board that are very familiar with their own curriculum. Any other questions from the board? Thank you, Ms. Marcella. I appreciate it. It is recommended that

110the Board of Education approve the adoption of the math instruction materials listed below with implementation beginning in the twenty-six, twenty-seven school year. Grades TK through five will be Curriculum Associates. Grades six through eight will be McGraw Hill. Grades nine through twelve will be Carnegie Learning. May I get a motion? So moved. Second. Moved by Bianca, second by Roberta. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Five zero. Next up is the pr-provisional intersh-- excuse me, internship permit for Justin Silvas. By allowing the provisional internship permit, Justin Silvas will serve as the teacher of record in the area of elementary education, multiple subjects at Twining Farms Elementary School while working towards completing the applicable, applicable requirements to become intern eligible. May I get a motion?Moved by Missy, seconded by Pete. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any nays? Five

111zero. That brings us to the layoff resolution, ten E, and we have, three public comments. We will start with Teresa Greer. Good evening, family members and school board members of Artemis. My name is Teresa Greer, and I have proudly worked for Mountain View White School District for the past ten years as an unlicensed health technician. I'm lost where I was. Please start from the beginning, please. I'm also a s-- CSEA union steward and on the board as a secretary for our chapter twenty-nine. I-- When I was hired for this position, the district did not require health technicians to be licensed. I completed and passed the required first aid and basic medical knowledge testing at the time. Prior to joining the district, I also had extensive medical background, working twelve-hour shifts in the hospital and twenty-four-hour

112shifts with the fire department. I choose to step away from the demanding schedule so that I can work in a school Monday through Friday and spending more time with my son and my husband while still serving my community. Today, eight unlicensed health technicians are facing layoffs, and we are still waiting for the district to provide a legitimate reason for this decision. According to the classified contract, Article J, Section one, line A, a layoff is defined as an involuntary separation from district service due to the lack of work and the lack of funds. At this time, we have not been provided sufficient information that demonst-demonstrates either the lack of work or the lack of funds. Additionally, Article J, Section one, line C, defines classification as positions assigned the same job title, job description, minimum qualifications, and

113salary range. It remains unclear how the district is applying this definition in reg-regali-regulations, sorry, to the current decision affecting unlicensed health technicians. I would like to remind the board that our district is one of the largest and most geographical widespread in the region. Each campus serves students with a wide range of med-medical, physical, and emotional needs. Health technicians play a critical role in supporting students with chronic illnesses, managing m-medications, responding to medical emergencies, and providing daily healthcare. It is essential that there is someone at each school site to respond to emergencies. Depending on where the district nurse is assigned in any given day, it can take anywhere from ten to even thirty minutes for them to arrive to another campus. In a medical emergency, that is significant amount of time. Signi-signif... Uh, sorry. Significant amount

114of time. The same delays can happen when we call nine one one in our area due to the distance of the time of response. There are important realities to consider when discussing about staffing our schools. Without consideration on-site health support, students' safely-- student safety and learning are placed at risk. Um, rather than el-eliminating the vital positions, I respect urge-- respectfully urge the board to evaluate other areas of spending, particularly one of the contract employees, including pro-act staff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Brianna Valdivia. Good evening, members of the board and Superintendent Dr. Vargas. My name is Brianna Valdivia. I'm a senior at Yeko High School. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here to advocate the keeping of Mr. Gay in his current role as an MTSS coordinator

115at Yeko High VHS. I understand that funding is a real challenge in schools everywhere. I understand the difficult decisions that come with balancing a budget. However, I believe in this case, keeping Mr. Gay in his current position is not only the right decision for the staff, but most importantly for the students. Mr. Gay has proven time and time again he is deeply committed to the success of his students. He goes beyond simply teaching in a classroom. He helps guide students who may be struggling academically, emotionally, or personally. Many students have been able to stay on track to graduate because Mr. Gay took the time to support them, encourage them, and make sure they didn't fall through the cracks. For some students, he is one of the s-- the adults at school they trust the most.

116Being a trusted adult in a school environment is incredibly important. Students need someone they feel comfortable turning to when they have difficulties. Mr. Gay has built that kind of relationship with many of his students. He listens to them, supports them, and helps them find solutions so they can continue moving forward in their education. That kind of dedication cannot easily be replaced, and its importance should not be overlooked. I also wanted to highlight the working relationship between Mr. Gay and Mr. Secat. They work well together and support one another in getting things done for the school and the students. Their teamwork allows responsibilities to be shared and handled more effectively when two educators collaborate and communicate well, the entire school benefits. Everything shouldn't have to fall on one person when we remove a position that is

117already working well. It can create unnecessary pressure and make it harder for programs to support systems to function the way that they should.Keeping both Mr. Gate and Mr. Secat allows them to continue the work they have already done, already have been doing together to support students and improve outcomes. I understand that funding must always be considered, but removing it-- moving someone from a position they are clearly good at purely because of funding can have unintended consequences. The value of a dedicated teacher who helps students graduate, builds trust, supports people during mo-important moments in their lives is something that goes far beyond the line of a budget. At the end of the day, the goal of every decision made here should be what's best for the students and the school community. Keeping both Mr. Gate and

118Mr. Secat allows the school to continue benefiting from their experiences, their teamwork, and their commitment to s-student success. I also have a lot of teachers and students and aides from the special needs department who have signed this after reading my speech about it. Thank you for your time in considering the positive impact that keeping both of these edu-educators will have on the school and its students. Thank you. Next, Susan Five. Hi. That's gonna be hard to follow. She spoke with really great emotion, and I appreciate that. So we're talking about classified layoffs. Are-- This is something that started, we started losing classified members post-COVID because of declining enrollment. The thing with that is, is our classified employees, work in partnership with the teachers. Now, we've all heard repeatedly that behaviors are becoming more intense, that

119students have needs that, more interventions are needed, more just-- The students need more because they're not getting it at home or elsewhere for their social, emotional needs. Well, ever since COVID, like I said, we've been cutting classified positions, we've been laying them off, and it's not doing our students any good. It's putting more burdens on the teachers. It's putting more stress on the students because they pick up our stress. Now, health techs are super important because when the, you know, they're there for the students, emergencies arise, they don't need to be licensed or unlicensed. They need to be there because they create that relationship with the student. If there is something that needs to go on, I don't know how it is now, but I remember when April was here, April oversaw everyone, and we

120were able to keep them within a reasonable budget because we weren't paying the extra seventy, eighty hundred dollars that would come out, you know, for having a licensed health technician. Now, here's the thing, too. You're also putting in IAs, and that makes us laying them off. They're being laid off regularly. Why? Because our students need more help now than ever. We need to have them there. We are-- You know, you, you've cut us down to skin and bones, and now we're cutting off limbs and the ability of trying to get the students to be helped more. We need to be there for the students, and we just need to be there for the students. The students are suffering because we don't have the people that they need when they need it. Um, and then, like

121I said, this has just been going on for quite a while. I did lose my thought. Um, I'm sorry. I got it. Our classified employees are important. They are. Uh, right now, we recently had a leadership meeting at our school with our leadership team, where they're already talking about letting go of next year's people. Re-re-lay off those. We don't have any more people. It's a safety issue because the less classified staff you have, who is gonna run the office? Who is gonna make sure that the gates are locked? Who is gonna be able to be vigilant on campus? Who's gonna provide the active supervision of students? The more people we lay off regularly, it's doing a disservice to our campus, it's doing a disservice to us, and it's not being safe for our students. We

122need to be, if nothing else, look at our climate right now. We need to be able to have people everywhere watching out for our students and doing what's in their best interest, and this is what we elected you for. So please consider that in your, consideration for laying off employees. Thank you. I'm now open it up for discussion by the board. Further discussion? Missy. I'm just still struggling with this. Um, my question is, are all of our positions for the health techs-- W-No. Overall, a-are all of our schools covered is what, what I wanna know. Are they covered now? I know we don't have many substitutes, but are we completely covered now with help, with health techs? Yes. In this moment, we do-- did have a resignation. We are hiring for, so we're in the

123process of hiring, and as soon as that person's on board, every staff at every school site has a minimum of one health tech. This is not true. No. Rondowell has no nurse right now. Nope. Didn't know that. No. And Black Rock, Black Rock does not have a health tech there. Well, at which site are we hiring? Again, they're it-itinerant workers or employees, so it's really hard, and there's a domino effect from moving. So you don't know. If you could have maybe Stephanie Cortese, if she's in the audience, to tell you the exact things. Onaga is the ex-exact position that is filled, from my understanding, but they move staff around in order to So we do have an opening at Onaga that we are filling with a new hire, and that domino affects every other site.

124So Morongo Valley is one that does not have another person there because they're covering another site for an absence. Understood. So, um- Can you turn your phone? These positions, as far as IAs go, I see one of the, one of the positions that is on this layoff request is a vacant position, and the other positions are, are they positions that we're hoping to recall these, these workers? Yes. Yeah. We will do that. Our Article J, layoff, discusses that when a position can be-- is on a rayoff-- layoff resolution or the preliminary that the board approves, if we have a vacancy, then we can involuntarily transfer that person. We have vacancies for our instructional assistants that are-- and we as a district and as the board are committed to ensure that they have the same number

125of hours. So they're not losing hours, they're not losing pay, and they're not gonna lose their health benefits. 'Cause it's my understanding that we still have several openings for instructional assistants, correct? Um, several is a low number. We have a large number of- A large number. -of openings. Okay. When you say large, how large are you talking about? Forty to fifty district-wide. So we have forty to fifty vacancies in our IAs that we cannot fill. Yes. And so by laying off some of the less-- the, the pro-- the positions that are in specialty funding, we can move those, transfer those staff into higher priority positions. For example, ex-- special education positions, positions that are being covered right now by ProCare contracts. So you're saying the special funding for those particular positions, the positions that we're

126not laying off, is leaving. It will be expiring, yes. And these-- the people that are in those positions right now are going to be given an opportunity to have the same hours and jobs with the vacant positions that we have. Is that correct? Yes. Not, not about the IAs. I understand that it's more the health technician that I'm having- Yeah, I'm, I'm struggling here. I'm really struggling with that. A bit. Not enough. And I say a bit, and it's a lot. Right. But I'm struggling with it. And so if it's on the same resolution, which is problem twenty-two, I mean, if we were gonna lay off the IAs, then we could do all of that, and then we could lay off the health technicians, and we have that separated, it would help. Okay. I would

127like to suggest an amended board approval, and that would be that we consider the IA, IA layoff because it is special funding that'll be running out. Um, and we do have IA positions both on edge one that people have applied to, so those positions can be rerouted. But with the health techs, it shows three layoffs, so I'd like to separate that out and keep those positions. You can, you can make that motion, I believe, and I believe that, Maria can absolutely amend the resolution. It was shown in the notes. Okay. Do we still need to talk about the health tech stuff? 'Cause I think there's- I would like to. I'm saying that, not just make the resolution to keep those positions, but to explore more options. And maybe alternatives to layoffs on that group. So

128the goal was to get more LPNs because they can provide more services for students than they currently have, correct? That's how I understood it, right? And Heidi, how many LPNs do we have approved? So, Roberta, the question you asked, could you repeat, please? I'm sorry. Okay. Roberta, the question you asked, could you repeat it, please? About, about not deciding tonight about laying off but keeping the positions and not doing a motion on that. I-- Okay. I thought I heard something about, um... Inflation. Well, okay. The, the, the original request was we, we're looking for-- because we have an average of three health techs absent a day. That pro-produces three absences at schools. And so every morning when we get the notice if somebody wanted to be out, Stephanie will say, "Okay, where are the students

129who have a higher priority medical or acute medical need that needs to be covered to make sure they're covered?" And then we rotate our staff that we have that's not out, that are, that are here to cover, make sure that those are all covered. And at times, we have to pull the nurse from their duties to make sure that they're now covering. So if I have three absences every single day, and I have my nurses covering those absences, I still have an absence somewhere that's not being covered, yet the nurses are not able to do their jobs. We-- To provide those coverages. The pieces that we're looking at is also what they can do. And ed code does say that, an unlicensed or an untrained individual, I mean, not un-untrained, an unlicensed yet trained individual

130can provide certain services to kids. But there's conditions in ed code that, thatThat's there. And I'll, I'll read out the conditions. One, it has to be routine for the pupil. That's easy. Second, pose little potential harm for the pupil. The third one is performed with predictable outcomes as defined in the IEP of the pupil. And then the fourth one, the fourth section, and this is where it gets kind of questionable, and this is where parents come into play when it comes to the needs of their child as well. So number-- the, the third one, that, that fourth one, D, does not require a nursing assessment. Um, the-- and the-- does not require interpretation or decision-making by the designated school personnel. So an unlicensed person who is trained can't interpret or make decision-making. It has to

131be routine of the ten-- pose little harm to the student. That is that line in ed code. And when you have new nurses and a new, coordinator, that's Stephanie that you just met, who is looking over, they're new to their positions. And when they're going to California School Nursing Association conferences, and they're learning, they're learning ed code, they're learning what these things mean, and then they're bringing out, "Hey, we really haven't been following the law and for protection of the district when it comes to that interpretation and decision-making." Have the ladies been doing it? Absolutely. Have they been doing a good job? Ninety percent of it, absolutely, they have. But right now, our big concern is that we have those absences, and we need the coverage. Every day it's their job of controlling that phone

132calls have to be made, and Stephanie visits at five thirty every single morning to make sure we have, have it covered. And the hardest phone call that we have to make is when we can't cover, and I have to call a parent to say, "I'm sorry, I don't have somebody today to cover your child. Can you come in to provide your child's care-- healthcare?" And if you can't, then they keep their child home. And we're getting into the season now of the year where we have field trips, and those kids when they go on field trips, we need to send somebody with them on that field trip. So my shortage of three now may be four and five because a health licensed person is now, or an unlicensed and trained, a health tech, is now

133going on that field trip with those students. Okay, did I give too much information? No, you haven't. You have. I think my biggest concern with this is that the needs of our students continue to get greater. Yes. I don't think that there's ever gonna be a day where we're gonna say, "We don't need licensed health techs anymore. We can go back." I think that our students, we need to move forward. We've already moved forward, it sounds like. We've had eight licensed health techs, correct? Unless one of them- It's seven licensed. Seven licensed. And, and eight unlicensed. And eight unlicensed. We have two students that have one-on-ones because they have acute medical needs that require licensed individuals next to them. And so when those individuals are out, we need to pull from the site folks to

134cover those students, or we have to say they cannot be at school. So it just seems like it's creating this problem where we're having to pull the licensed people from their schools. It just doesn't make any sense to me why we're fighting this. I understand that we wanna do the best for our staff, and we care about our staff, which is why I think it's important for us to care about those who wanna pursue getting a license, that we do everything we can to support them in that. But this is the way forward, and I don't understand why we're kicking the can down the road and saying we don't need to do this now. This isn't gonna go away. We're still gonna need more licensed health techs next year. So why are we preventing this

135from happening now? For me, the problem lies with the first of all, laying off personnel. That's a very, very difficult, decision for me to make. Never had to make it in the five and a half years I've been on the board. So that's-- it's an emotional issue, although we're not supposed to feel emotional about this. We do the school business. Um, I just see that we need more health techs, licensed or unlicensed. We need to give them unlicensed health techs, ultimatums, dates, timelines where they have to get their license. I agree with that. I don't know that that has been done. They need to have like, this date you have to have a license or you're laid off when it happens. I don't know that that's been done. I don't think they can do that

136until we approve this. You are violating contracts. You can't-- You cannot do that. That is correct. That is-- That, that is correct, Ms. Dirks. Say that again. I'm sorry. We wouldn't be able to give, a health tech an ultimatum about getting their license without some kind of layoff resolution that would put us into, negotiations with CSEA, which we would do, and some type of probably MOU. So if we didn't do the layoffs, we hire LVN, and then we have the possibility of displacing those health techs, which with a guarantee, we already have a... It's, I don't know if it's a guarantee or whatever, for another similar position with the same salary, benefits, that sort of thing. Does that make sense? So we have three people looking at- With the layoff resolution, they do have displacement-

137Rights or bumping rights, I cannot guarantee that that would be the same salary. Although, as I said before, we're committed to making sure that we keep our positions full-time and with benefits. Well, Roberta, I, I, I agree with you. I'm, I'm concerned- However, I've been out talking. I've talked to Heidi, I've talked to, union representatives, I've talked to some other people. You know, I, I'm kinda seeing where you're going too. I think we need to get these higher qualifications in there. I don't wanna lay anybody off. I think... But we need to, we need to get those positions filled, those positions out on campus, so they can do what we need them to do. We don't need to keep coming in at five thirty in the morning, jerking people out of different schools, which just

138upsets the whole apple cart throughout the whole district. We, we need to probably, I agree, get this done, as hard as this is gonna be. Uh, I know that is-- I'm not very popular saying that, but I think that's the good thing for the district. Uh, we're gonna have kids out there that are gonna get the right services if needed. Hopefully not. But if needed, we're, we're gonna lessen the liability of the district because we don't have that out there. We don't need that either. So I, I think as, as hard as this is for me, I would probably, if I were to ask to vote, I would probably have to say yes. Roberta. I don't know that other alternatives have been explored. And I don't understand, I don't understand why the current-- I don't

139understand that fully, but I'll find out, not being able to do it in the timeline and alternating this time without a layoff, essentially. It's hard not to. Because the current, the current health tech position doesn't require a license. The licensed health tech position, which is a different position, is the one that requires a license. So unless we were laying off their position, I couldn't require them to get a license that is not in their current job description. So what about from laying off three? I mean, the three. Not eight. I know that was, that was put out there, but there's only three positions. Are we going to rehire licensed person- students now with those three amounts? We're gonna get three hundred sixty. And is that gonna be easy to do? And can't licensed and unlicensed

140work together more? Yes. Yeah. I don't-- I'm not, I'm not understanding how fully this works. I mean, in other districts, don't they have licensed and unlicensed? Yes. It's not hiring two people for one site either. It would make sense to me for some of the larger sites. So I'm like... Because to me, the-- I guess the key here is the decision-making. That because I've looked at the licensed and the unlicensed, they can pretty much do everything except for the decision-making, and that's the big liability. And I understand that, and I do understand and want our licensed-- unlicensed techs to become licensed. I think that that's important for our district to have that. But it's just the transitioning to that, are there other alternatives? And if I may, I mean, Roberta, I mean, one of the

141things that we're doing as a district is provide that opportunity for our unlicensed, nurses to actually get their license. And we have worked with them to say they have that opportunity. So we're not saying laid off, and, and that's it. If they come back with a game plan, which is what we're providing, then we'll be happy to accommodate for that. But also, if you don't change those positions to licensed, there's no recourse for the district to say, "Now you need to become licensed." Exactly. So this is a way for the district to do that. So, and Joanne, you currently have an LV in the district. What, what sort of interest do we get on these posts usually? So it depends. Honestly, it depends on the time of year when, some of the licensed vocational nurse,

142programs, such as the one at CMC, are graduating students, we typically have a large number of applicants. Um, and then it can be a little bit more challenging when they- Then they aren't really experienced, are they? I mean, they don't-- they haven't had experience. You know what I'm saying? They're, they're LVNs, but they really haven't had a lot of experience. Well, I mean, that's-- it would be a case-by-case basis. For example, one of our current health techs who then chose to get their LPN would be very experienced in having health tech services at our school site prior to getting the LPN. So that's case by case. Do we have any of the trained but not licensed, nurses that are taking up our offer to pay for whatever our offer is to become licensed? So we,

143we have not-- Again, without a preliminary layoff resolution, we have not worked on any of those steps in that detailed of a manner, and we won't be able to, to do that without a preliminary layoff notification. We have done a survey, and our staff went out and talked with the CSEA president and all of the, health techs that are in the situation. And we did get three say that they would be interested in pursuing something like that, two that were unsure, and three that said they were not interested. There is way to re- renegotiate without the layoff with the union. Go ahead, Roberta. Any other comments? Do we wanna proceed with my suggestion on the amended or keep it as the current, resolution? I guess when you say that there were three, that weren't interested

144in pursuing the license, are those the three that have been laid off or- Yeah, they were the ones in Morro Bay. And we're laying off three. We're still gonna have to qualify for the license. Yeah. So we'd have to lay off the three if we were to change the job description a bit. I think we just- No. See, I'm still- No, we're, we're not changing the job description. And yes, layoffs put a contract into negotiation for the RIs. I think Any other comments, Mrs. Fincher? Pete? I think, I think if we were to go with it today, I'd vote yes. I just have to say that. But it seems like there's enough of us that don't feel ready to do this. I guess we table it. We can't try to finalize it. Well, we go

145ahead and take the vote, and then we just raise it to qualify. Yep. Um, I think it would be easier if we split them and then vote on them separately. Is that something we can do? Yes. Um, I make a motion that we separate the resolution for IAs and health techs regarding classified layoffs. Can I get a motion? Or I'm sorry, make it second. Sorry. I'm sorry. So that's Bianca, and then we'll give it to Roberta. All in favor on the IA. Aye. Oh, just on the motion. All, all in favor? Aye. Second by Jeffrey. Can I get a motion to abolish one vacant IA classroom position, three IA classroom positions, one IA behavioral? Second. Moved by Roberta, second by Pete. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Five zero. Now we are looking at, abolishing

146the three health tech positions. Can I get a motion? Aye, so moved. Moved by Pete. Second. Seconded by Bianca. All in favor? Aye. No? I'm a no. Three, two. Or excuse me, so two nay-- two yays, three nos. And that's, that's it for that portion. Thank you. Items for review. First up will be the, board policy zero four five zero, comprehensive safety plan, pulled up and reworded. Um, I did have a question on board policy three three one one on bids. It's just more the language. Just wanted to get some clarification on it. So when I was looking at that, what I thought was really odd is that we have to choose the low bid. I guess we'll see if they have answers. Low bid, or the best bid in the district. How the heck

147do we determine the best bid in the district? Um, let me get Heather here to explain a little bit about that. One second. Can you hear back? I'll say that. Sorry. I'm sorry. Can you repeat that one more time? Yeah, no problem. Can you repeat please? Yeah, no problem. Um, so I was looking through board policy three three one one, and, typically we're supposed to-- we're required to take the low bid, but there's also language that says, "Or the, the best value to the district." How, how is that-- 'cause that's very, very broad. What does that mean exactly? Um, well, currently, so that would only matter for like certain scenarios with like technology or, maybe like a specialized service. When it comes to, public works, we are following the lowest bid, and it is in

148line with, the state of California recommendations. Okay. And, obviously we have a lot of this going on Measure C, and I know-- Are you involved in all that, Measure C? Yes. Um, typically, how many busine-- It seems like we're getting the same contractors and architects. Are we getting, a variety of options on ours? Is it pretty singular or? Uh, we always solicit. Um, we always are advertising. Um, we are always put-- You know, you may see the, common contractors because there's just not a lot of folks that will come to our district. But I would imagine for the larger projects, we probably see some- So is that like an RFP process or? It's an actual formal bid process. It's a formal bid process. Yep. Okay. That's all I have. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

149Thank you. Okay. And then I did have, item for review, which is the board policy, the first read review. We were talking about the adult-student interaction. When I was reading through it, I didn't really see a difference other than the third one. So I'm just wondering, can anybody verify what really changed on forty- I can. Forty-one nineteen, forty-two nineteen. So we added forty-one nineteen-- I'm sorry. We added forty-two nineteen and forty-three nineteen, and this ensures that we have policies for our certificate of professional development and management staff. Okay. Also- Oh. Right after the board meeting that we had when we pulled it the last time on February nineteenth, CSBA came out with some new guidance to ensure that, we had a couple more points in the inappropriate conduct area mainly that really hit SB eight

150forty-eight, which is a new law that requires that districts have specific policies against, sexual conduct and misconduct with students. So there are a couple of new ones here that are, that are very clear, and I don't think anyone would disagree that they shouldn't be policies, such as number eighteen, that it's, you know, you know, that a, an employee can't physically, sexually abuse or neglect a public-- a public-- a public school district child. Things like that. So some of the newer ones are ones that are actually very-- You probably didn't notice them because they weren't the ones that were too nuanced as we were discussing at the last board meeting. What we did do is look at the, I believe at the last board meeting, it was numbers six and seven, but it has-- it is

151now numbers nine and ten in the board policy. Um, and these were the ones that I know we were talking about being sort of, context maybe giving overgeneralized for, um... So we didn't add a lot of terminology, but we did add some terminology to really contextualize it. So again, with number nine, really ensuring we added that, that this type of personalized attendance would need to be beyond the professional staff-student re-relationship, because we know that that relationship, professional relationship exists. Um, and so we're really trying to sig-- point out that singling out a s-student would be consu-- would be concerning, could be considered grooming, and we don't want to not have a policy against that. But again, it should be something above and beyond our professional boundary. And then for number two-- number ten, I think

152that the term of endearment, what was, what was really concerning, because sometimes we generalize and call students by, sweetie. Sweetie was my go-to when I was a teacher, or sweetie if I didn't know their name 'cause they were in my class. Um, but so it's the personalized term of endearment or a pet name is something that we're saying is not appropriate instead of just like a generalized term of endearment. So are you saying sweetie is inappropriate for a teacher? No, I'm saying that it would be if it's generalized. Okay. It would not be if it's personalized, intentionalized. If it's a pet name singled out, picked out just for a s-particular student. I see. Okay. 'Cause that's the difference in line, and, and you had asked that we would go in and do a general pass,

153well we did, and that this is the advice that's helping our general public. That makes sense. Um, the other thing I had, and a lot of teachers came to me on this because I was in Seal at the time. Um, I think it was number eleven, the community events. Um, a lot of teachers go to soccer games, basketball games, et cetera, et cetera. Um, is that written such that it's not gonna be an issue if they go to a student's game? Right. No, but that-- It doesn't say that they can't. It says socializing or spending time with students outside of school-sponsored events, except as participants in community activities. So going and being a spectator at a, at a softball game- It's fine ... is an, is like except-exception. Com-- Community, maybe church events if you're

154there. Okay. They're talking about you wouldn't do it if it wasn't in that larger community context. Okay. Sorry, I just-- Just something I was trying to point because we had a lot of feedback from teachers. Sure. Okay. Any other questions on the item for review? Next up would be future agenda item. Oh, yeah. Future agenda items. Do we have any recommendations? No. Okay. If you do, reach outFuture agenda. Um, we do have a board district calendar. Spring break March twenty-third through April third. Coast to Coast Advisory trip, April twenty-- or excuse me, April twelfth through the fifteenth, twenty twenty-six. Next board meeting is going to be April twenty-first. That is a change. Make sure you mark your calendars. By one week, we're pushing one week due to the Coast to Coast advocacy trip. And then

155next would be the board study for April twenty-eighth. And then the, the follow-up board meeting in, uh-- will be moved to May twelfth from May-- Oh, to May fifth from May twelfth. Um, but back to the board study. What, what would the board like to do? What would the board like to have in that April board study? I thought we were gonna do- Yeah, we did. -instructional series. Right. But we can change it. Do we, do we feel, in circles? That's pretty general. What, what-- I don't even remember what we were trying to get from that. It looked like times- Okay. -HR, business, instructional. Okay. Um, do we feel, do we feel comfortable that, the consultants that are helping us with the enrollment committee, do we feel like they have enough information to present and

156come to a meeting at this point? I don't know if Professor Vargas or Daniels So we were talking about that, that timeline, and we think that maybe the consultants can come to the April, the April twenty-first meeting and present it there as part of the board study session prior to the, the board meeting. But it is up to you if you wanna change it to the twenty-eighth, we can schedule it for that. So it's your call. Do you guys see value in that? Well, I guess if we did the board study on April twenty-eighth, then that would be something carried to the May meeting as far as what's gonna happen. Um, do you guys see value in having that? I see value. Because honestly, we haven't gotten the information that we requested. You're advocating for

157a seat on which date? On April twenty-eighth during the board study, so that we have time to actually discuss, the items. I think, I think we made a mistake. Well, one thing-- I'm sorry to cut you off. One thing to consider is that we usually have the board studies at the Professional Development Center. Okay. And considering we're gonna have the consultants there, I know that we're gonna have a lot of attendance. Mm-hmm. So that might not be the most appropriate place. Yes. Well, we could potentially make it later if you guys are willing. We can do it here. Maybe do it here. We have to check with-- I have to check with So we have to check the use of facilities and the, and the time when we're starting that meeting so that we all

158agree on that. You made everybody nervous with that one. Okay. Um... That's my concern because I know that we can't fit as many people in that room. Okay. And I know that it will probably be well attended. Okay. Any other recommendations around that? Other than putting it at the regular board meeting, which would already be here. We can do that. I guess we- You guys may have- And the only thing will be that we have to check with the site if we can start, uh- Early ... maybe at three PM so that we have enough time for the discussion and conversation. See if you all agree on that also. Yeah, we have to check with the times because does the school get out at three? Two thirty? When I get here at three, they're still

159in here and they have to get out of the U-Lock because of the U-Lock, so that might- Yeah. There-- In the PD center, in the PD center actually we fit seventy people. We can fit seventy people, and in Mueller, we can fit eighty. So that's, that's a big crowd. Yeah, if we had it structured the way we did for the enrollment committee meeting. Yeah. Yeah. I would just like to see some of that information. Uh, I think the board really needs it because we'll get a lot of feedback on this, and I understand that. So, so that we may start at least formulating- Groundwork. Yes. Right. So are you guys good with that for the April twenty-eighth with JT? Okay. You good with that, Roberta? Mm-hmm. Okay. And we're sure that they're gonna be ready

160for us in April? Oh, yeah. They will be. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. That leads us to board comments. We'll start with, Missy. I just want to say I, I really, really, really like-- I didn't get to go, but I heard nothing but absolutely fantastic things about it. Sorry. About the Literacy for Life event, Literacy is Life. I hear-- I heard lots of little ones and parents talking about how wonderful that was, so that was a great thing. Same with Flying Doctors. I wasn't able to be here, but that is such a huge deal I missed, and I know I missed. So my plan is to be at the next one for sure. But I've heard it was awesome. And congratulations to Purple-- the Purple Star Schools. That to me is huge, too, being

161a s-- a person from Twenty-Nine Palms especially, where we've got that Marine base. That is an awesome, awesome deal for those staffs and students, and I just want to say that's, that's great. Congratulations. Thank you, Missy. Uh, let's go to Roberta. I don't really feel like making any comments at the moment, but I will I love, I just, I, I haven't, I don't think I've, I've addressed this before, but I love having those middle school students coming and giving their reports to the drill bit. I really enjoy that a lot. Um, and it gives them an opportunity that they didn't have before. Um, I did go to the Literacy for Life, and it was a huge success. It was very well attended. Um, I was just amazed at how many things the children were getting

162from, you know, for free. They were getting new games, and they were having just the time of their lives, running around, getting their little hearts checked. So I really enjoyed that and thought it was very well organized. Um, it brought the community together 'cause they were coming from all over. Um, what was it called? Flying Doctors, I went Sunday, and it was almost windy enough that still we have doctor in our community for them to get the medical attention that they need. It was just awesome. Um, I wanna thank the public speakers tonight. I appreciate your ideas and your passion. I'm very appreciative. I, I'm very appreciative. Uh, it gives us things to think about outside of our own minds, and it just expands our way of looking at things. So I do appreciate those

163of you that got up and spoke tonight. Um, the textbook adoption, it was a long, arduous process, and I appreciate our district personnel for the work they went, that they did to organize it, to include the teachers' voices and learn from the experience. It's just, it was very well done, and I appreciate that effort, too, and the kind of teachers that participate, we feel really so honored. And I hope we can, come together and solve the problems that we have. We're, we're facing a lot of things in our future, so I guess that's it for tonight. Thank you, Roberta. Uh, Bianca? Um, I think I'll start by echoing Miss Missy about, the events the past couple weekends. Um, I think last year I cried when I was talking about the Flying Doctors 'cause it was

164so moving. I'm not gonna cry this time. Um, but it was amazing to see, the program expand. Um, and I'm just looking forward to seeing that continue each year and just to see the people helped. It was amazing. Um, I went to the Literacy is Life event, with my family, which was wonderful. Having the authors there signing their books was just an amazing honor, such a privilege for us to have. Um, and all of the people who, from the community who had the booths, all of the sponsors or however they got involved, that was amazing. So congrats to the whole team. Thank you guys so much for putting that together. That was an amazing event. Um, thank you to our staff for always being so prompt when we have questions, cabinet, everybody, Vargas. I just

165wanna say thank you because we're hounding you a lot, and it's only gonna be more. So I just appreciate you guys always being there when we have questions and being, so responsive. And thank you to my fellow... Um, why am I crying? Thank you to my fellow board members. I don't think we've disagreed on anything yet. A little disagreement's not bad, but, I just, I value you guys' input so much. So thank you, guys. I'm gonna stop. You're right, Pete. Oh, wow. I think I second everything that everybody else has said because you've said a lot. There's a lot of things going on in, in this school district and, and, from the staff to the teachers. But nobody talked about science. You know, I, I got to judge a couple of schools. It was great

166to see those, those science projects. Saw several of you at the science, deal down at Gaffer Valley High. That was well done. I really thought that was well done. I liked the space, everything about it. Yeah, the, the, doctors deal was great. Yeah, the massage was okay. It was great, Pete. Uh, didn't get a haircut, as you can tell. But yeah, I, I... You know, what was really neat is talking to the, the students that are waiting to take patients back to where they had to. Those kids were just fired up to talk, you know, and they were respectful, and that was really neat. But I got to go on a field trip with Twenty-nine Palms Junior High School as a substitute parent, and, the kids were great. The park rangers were outstanding, great people.

167Five miles, and you know what? Those teachers, those four teachers that had these kids were spot on. They were working together. They enjoyed the kids. I enjoyed the whole scenario, even though it was cold. So a lot of things going on. Thank you very much for everything you do. Appreciate the, the comments tonight. Some were a little bit harder.To, stomach, if you want to call it that. But, you know, I, I think that's why we do this. Uh, we have learned a lot from tonight, and I think we're gonna learn a lot from, our next committee meeting. So, it's all about education. Thank you, Pete. Um, yeah, to-- a lot of-- reiterate a lot of the same things. Uh, Flying Doctors, even if you're not in medical need, I highly recommend you try to attend

168that just to see because we also have students that are working. We have, students from ASD and the Honor Society that are all through the campus supporting and directing people to the right place. Always and one of the best, part of the cap. And then the-- Amy gave me the full tour, and her-- I don't think I've ever been that excited in my life, and she's excited about this event, and has a passion that is just-- I wish we all had that. I mean, I feel like a lot of us do, but, really, really remarkable work. So great job to you and the great host, obviously. Um, Literacy for Life, also ano-another thing I saw many of you that are out in the, public that were there as well. It was a fantastic-- I would

169really encourage as many people to show up for that as well, to see that excitement for reading with the kids and being able to meet authors, people that actually wrote-- put pen to paper for some of those books. Um, so I wanna rec-- and I don't wanna leave anybody out, but Tracy and Marcella and staff, you guys all did a tremendous, tremendous job. I know we recognized a couple of you today with the, with the flag salute, so thank you very much for that. Um, oh, thank you for the crowd, the people that we put on the spot that just hopped up that didn't know they were gonna get called on. So thank you for all of you. Um, really appreciate that. And then the reason that I think a lot of the board is

170here is that we wanna give a quality education, and to hear that two Twain High students got into Cal Berkeley, that's a big deal, folks. I mean, those are-- That's a top ten university in the whole country, so it was really, really impressive. Hopefully, we get a chance to actually meet those students. But really remarkable stuff, so congrats to them. And, as always, you know, I thank you for the robust public comment. We're-- Our ears are wide open, and we need a lot more information as well, and that's something we're all working toward. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. And with that, we will clo-- we will, adjourn to closed session.