001I'm about I'm in sounds like there's feedback not too not thank you for your patience we're just having a little bit of technical difficulties there's a echo yeah I turned it off okay too bad we can't actually this happened before and what we did we just had her call with her phone um and that happened to me but I was on my phone the whole time so you want to be on your phone if through the video she can't get it she can do her phone or keep both of them up and then just mute herself on the computer and while she's talking on the phone and vice versa which she's not do you want to call in she's got the can you can you communicate yeah do you want to call interest okay she's
002gonna call in gonna call that way she's gonna call in though right now okay so in the meantime the only time we'll hear her speak is when we actually allow press it for her to speak is that what you're saying no she you can like she calls here if TR calls you're both talking look if we put CH on the phone I think you're there yeah then she can talk and she can she can stay muted over there and then she can talk on phone like you did it remember yeah we can do it like that yeah and then she can stay yeah it's easier if she just goes okay we got Corum now so all right this meeting is being brought to order at 5:33 thank you for your patience um Miss Mar can
003you please do roll call today is a special board meeting of December 2nd 2024 at 5:30 p.m. members of the board and attendance president Linda Chavez presid vice president Andres Kinto he hasn't gotten here yet clerk mfam present member can you say yeah yeah we can hear member Andrea FL Shelton here members of administration superintendent hmana here can you all please stand for the pledge allegiance Mr uh for the record uh vice president kto is here at 5:35 U Mr trii think I seen you out there thank you we made an announcement to the public that interpretation Services were available earlier oh thank you yes yes anything else Madame President uh not at this moment thank you I I can repeat the message if you want for those people who need a Spanish interpretation we
004have headsets available in the table outside and we also have Vietnamese interpret an interpreter Vietnamese interpreter available for the public if if they need it that's great thank you thank you okay um Mr said that real quick can we get a chair from Mr roel okay first I'm going to call uh Miss Francy uh she's from the Santa Clair County Office of Education um there's so many people in the room I don't know if she's here there you go thank you can you hear me just hour good [Music] evening are we good yeah we're good okay uh good evening Co President Chavez border of truste superintendent s uh and all of the community that is here this evening uh my name is Francy Heim I am the fiscal expert signed to Alam Rock by the
005Santa Clara County Office of Education uh Don ziming and I have been working as a team uh since May of this year and Don zimmering has been the one who's been in attendance at most of your board meetings since July uh and he was not able to be here tonight when I spoke to the board back in May I started by thanking the Board of Trustees for serving the students and the community of alumrock you have an incredibly difficult job of balancing the needs of students and the community with the reality of maintaining fiscal solvency for a district that is diminished in size from over 11,000 students to 7,000 students I want to publicly acknowledge your extraordinary effort since I spoke to you back in May uh to develop a proposal for board action to
006address your budget shortfall um I also want to acknowledge the the district leadership team for all of their efforts and work throughout these months um meeting with the community and going through a myriad of budget proposals to arrive at a proposal this evening for consideration when I spoke in May um I talked about um answering the question what happens if reductions are not made and I thought it might be helpful again um I know the board is very much aware of the process uh but for members of the community it might be helpful Al to understand something about this process um so i' just like to take a moment and describe the sequence of events that are outlined in Education Code relative to school district fiscal solvency so at this stage um the district is
007in a finding of qualified certification which means that a fiscal expert is assigned to support the district in their decision- making so it is the district and the board who are developing the proposals and uh we are just here to Simply serve as expert advice throughout that process if action was not taken the the next step in the process for a district that is headed toward fiscal insolvency is a finding of going concern and at that point in time a fiscal expert becomes a fiscal advisor and pursuant to the Education Code that fiscal advisor comes with additional authority to stay and resend actions of the board and move the board closer toward a plan of fiscal solvency if no action is taken to resolve the budget crisis eventually it results in the district unable to
008pay their bills and needing to go to the State of California for a loan when that happens the district loses and the District board loses control of the school district an administrator is appointed an administrator then makes the decision necessary to balance the budget and as a point of reference I mentions again back in May but it Bears repeating again uh Englewood School District is a a very similar example of a school district that again very similar with over 11,000 students in Decline to around 7,000 students and they have an administrator they have a state loan and that administrator has come in and the administrator has closed those schools so that was the message that I shared back in May um and I know this is incredibly painful for the community this decision weighs heavily
009on the board and again I I I would like to close by thanking you all for the incredible amount time that you have dedicated in finding a solution to your fiscal solvency thank you um Mr Manny while we're waiting for the slides to go up uh good evening and um you've heard this presentation a couple of times but again there may be people have not have heard it so I'm going to go through it again and highlight some of the key points of the process um that was used so we're waiting for the let me um let me just begin while we're waiting for the slides that um again I want to acknowledge the work of the committee that was involved it was an extremely um challenging process and I also want to acknowledge as
010Francine mentioned the difficult task that you face in terms of making this very difficult um decision as I'd mentioned before this is a very emotional decision no one is going to thank you for closing their schools um it's not a situation that it that anyone enjoys it is what it is not one of the most difficult uh challenges that a board has to make this is the sixth time that I've been involved with a school closure process when I had to do it myself as a superintendent Consulting with other districts are facilitating the process and it Remains the most difficult decision that a board um has to make it's not only a psychological emotional position I'd mentioned also in the past that it is a political decision you have been threatened by recall people are
011not happy they get angry and uh it's what makes being on the Board of Trustees of a school district the most challenging elected position there's no other elected position that you have people so close people in your community that know you that you are faced with this kind of um decision I can keep on going if you I know the presentation if you put it up there okay I don't want to take off there there we go that's sorry Karina she's off the screen all right um again a little bit of history and Francine kind of alluded to this um when we've discussed this when I was interim uh the district is faced with a $20 million deficit uh we basically have enough one-time funds to last us this year and then next year and
012then we're basically becoming solvent we've been assigned a fiscal crisis management assist assessment assessment team who has um reviewed the budget and made a presentation to um to you um back in November we've been assigned a fiscal expert who um has been with us um and uh following the entire process and reviewing the budget the County Office of Education has required a plan of how the budget would be balanced uh assistant superintendent uh Teresa dellis presented that to you earlier and has also given that presentation and our plan to the county office and the board has approved the need for a process to close up to nine schools and again the reason we do a process we want to take in community input we try to do this in a way that that has a
013smoother staff execution plan and to try as much as possible maintain positive community relations I mentioned if you're part of the community whose school is recommended for consolidation or close it it is not a pleasant process and you're not going to have agreement from no one is going to come to you and say please close our schools as I've been mentioned uh the alternative to closing schools is um basically you can cut programs so it's basically arriving at the way to to close the budget deficit you can reduce employee compensation opportunities it's the only way where there's money can be saved raise revenue through partial tax as I mentioned to you before this district has already been very generous with um one of the the best um if not the best parcel tax in the
014entire east side and of course as uh you just heard from our fiscal uh expert at the county we can be looking at insolvency there is another there is another option uh and I mentioned this to you because you may not be aware in the early 2000s 2001 Mountain View District and wisman uh District op to merge there were two separate districts uh it was a difficult process I remember very well and um but that was the decision now the district has been functioning for over 20 years um but that is another option that um I should at least mention to you i' already talked about in my opening comments about how difficult this is as an emotional uh process this is a very it's a real loss to people they have emotional ties to
015the community um it's also very political your elected officials and are subject to and are accountable to the community the assumptions that we entered the process is that the Board of Trustees makes the final decision on this this is your decision um based on uh input uh from the stakeholder committee which made an informed recommendation to the superintendent who in turn has made some recommendations to you and the assumption is of course no one really wants to consolidate or close schools the committee was composed of a parent from each school and as I've mentioned before um the board made it clear that the members of the committee needed to reside within the district boundaries Midway through the process unfortunately it was discovered that one of the members did not reside um within the boundaries of
016that particular School District or this District and subsequently um uh had to leave the committee there were Key Community groups involved neighborhood associations the management team had representation um the um unions had representation on the committee the executive cabinet was present but not as voting members but as resources the superintendent was present non voting uh again as a fallback a marketing consultant and uh facilitators myself and uh Michael SED again I want to I want to acknowledge the committee this was significant time commitment you're going to see how many times we met they had to take a look at the district looking at the interest of an entire District not just their own school which is makes it very difficult they're under their own pressure from their own community and it took a psychological and
017emotional toll on the committee it was very stressful and regardless of what happens uh they need to be knowledge for that uh because I know it's been pressing on uh on them during this entire process the administration role was to execute the proc the uh policies of the board and also to provide for the facilitation of the process and the superintendent making the recommendation to the Board of Trustees the superintendent gave the committee a charge and again as you can see it was to um address the $20 million budget um inbalance and the board had authorized a consolidation committee to consider recommending the closure of up to nine schools the committee was to provide a recommendation to the superintendent of up to those nine schools and the superintendent made it clear this was a real
018opportunity for the district once this hard hard process is over to reimagine ourselves and look to what a new Alam Rock School District can look like as we've mentioned many time the district is land Rich cash poor there just isn't enough funding to to have some of those programs that really support students um and that moving forward this will be available uh to the remaining schools that would be a district with some resources and really able to service and provide the best education polic uh possible for the students as I mentioned uh the facilitator I was one Michael SED was the other and Heather mcon was the marketing consultant these are the meetings that were held the committee received information on the budget on demographics and enrollment as the fiscal adviser from the county mentioned
019we've gone from 11,000 to 7,000 with a projection in the next four or five years to go down as few as 5,000 students should also be mentioned charter schools have taken their toll and again these are charter schools that have been approved by the county uh not by you and so uh you've had to Bear the responsibility um and the impact on our budget as a result the um committee also received information on programs Human Resources developed criteria and then began a prioritization process even added and willing to meet an an additional meeting and then of course we we've had the public hearing board information which led us today to um board action there were some challenges of this committee the size of the committee I've never worked with a committee this large to have
020to address an issue this challenging with the number of schools being considered what's going on is going on around us uh neighboring districts are looking is closing anywhere from five schools in one District to three more in another districts the other districts by the way have already gone through school closure so uh all the districts within what we call the East Side Alliance which is the East Side High School District and the feeder districts have all gone through school closures over time the number of schools considers a real challenge to look as many as nine schools left us with a lack of a Runway but what I mean is um with prior work you can you can close schools ahead of time so that the impact is less so you don't have to close as
021many schools as you're faced closing now but we don't have that Runway because we only have enough funds for this year and next year so there isn't really a lot of time to do this on a gradual basis and we're faced with this um significant challenge of closing as many as nine schools to close that $20 million and of course the timeline was very challenging starting in uh the end of September and completing the work at the end of October the committee received the information that I shared and any other information that was provided um they're allowed to ask any questions there was discussion debate discussion prioritization and then finally agreement these are the criteria that were looked at the asterisks are the ones that had extra weight so for example being close to a
022charter was given extra weight wait could the neighbor is there a neighboring school to receive the students the capacity of the school received extra weight the maintenance cost of a school enrollment transport is transportation going to have to be provided special education facilities was given extra weight special programs and then any Community special programs I mean for example the Dual emerging programs um within the district and then schools that had received Community grants all information that the committee received was presented to the district as a whole they were uh made available to the community and parents Square um the superintendent held Town Hall meetings and Al uh both through zoom and also went to the sites themselves there been numerous meetings uh explaining the situation that we Face ourselves in and the process that was
023involved the committee reached consensus actually on seven schools counting Chavez so six schools by Chavez they could not reach consensus in the final three schools the middle schools and so um they were asked to uh come back for a final meeting and in the meantime a group of the committee met separately and came back with an additional scenario to what had been already agreed so there was much debate we only had two hours to address that because we were really expected to be looking at the uh the M the Middle School involvement and uh we could not reach consensus there was a majority based on the committee that had met but there was um several at least five people in the committee who were not involved in that who are not comfortable with that process
024as a result those final schools were given to the superintendent um and to look at the recommendation um and look in the best interest of the district as I mentioned the recommendation was made to the superintendent the superintendent could accept the recommendation or modify it and then following that Community meetings have been held to allow input to the recommendation by the superintendent again these were open to the community they were both online and in person um as well as the public hearing and the information meeting which you've been privy to where the public public has been able to provide input input directly to you the superintendent considered the recommendations to include the rationale and framing of the recommendation as to why it is essential and how it will benefit the student the district and the
025students in the future we already mentioned the input was provided directly to you on November 14th of the public hearing again on the 24 the 21st at the information meeting with brings us today um where you are asked to take action to the recommendation and as I've mentioned and I will continue mention having been through this many times um this is the first part of the process the transition that comes following this is extremely important and very challenging we're needing to look at the needs of the students involved in the schools that are being Consolidated or closed and the trans position to the um to their new School parent groups need to come together and discuss um how they will now um be Reinventing their new school staff is impacted um their layoffs as a
026result both at the management team level a classified and certificated level staff is also impacted with the cultural impact of having to merge with another school their facility ities issues are there um schools that will need additional facilities or modified facilities because of increased enrollment instructional materials need to be transferred and of course at the end a closure um a cultural and an emotional psychological closure for the schools that are impacted um at the end of the year uh to make it a formalized process this time I'll entertain any questions that you might have see no questions from the board thank you um superintendent can you please speak next yeah I I will I I will speak next uh thank you uh President Chavez um let me know when you're ready to with the presentation
027yes please can we see the presentation present yes let me know when you're ready all right so thank you everyone board president trustees uh tonight what I will be uh recommending is a revised uh recommendation for school consolidation uh closures and also schools that will be redesigned and so can you go to the next slide and I'll give you a little bit more context and like uh Mr barara mentioned uh in his presentation uh you know why you know the closures why the consolidations well we have a 20 million dollar deficit that we need to address and I know you've heard it before I did address address this at the Town Hall meetings and that's a very very large deficit that we need to address and in order for us to continue to um retain
028local control and keep our programs we have to reduce during this year 2425 uh we a savings of 20 of $10 million and then for the 2526 school year we need to find another $10 million and those are things that we've been working with we're uh continuing to work toward uh and this year the closur is the first step in getting to the 10 million next uh slide please and like Mr Barbara mentioned in his presentation and uh I've also mentioned it uh during my uh Town Hall meetings when I've met with with community members uh when I met with with uh anybody at a school site or a parent that has had concerns is this is an opportunity for us to reimagine a an Alum Rock that's going to have more resources that we're
029going to be able to to be smaller leaner we're Spread Way Too Thin and this is going to be an opportunity for us to maximize those resources that our students need that our sites need in order for us to prepare our students for a brighter future next slide please and after closures and consolidation of course redesigning some of the sites uh we're going to be able to focus on uh using our our our bond monies toward fewer sites so that we can improve and repair our aging facilities and build conducive learning environments for our students and this is something that was approved by the community um by the voters I'm sorry uh less schools will mean more same level classes will improve collaboration I've been visiting sites and some of the sites that I visited
030there's only one teacher teaching one grade level there's not enough teachers and I've talked uh and I'm going to quote uh Sandra Riva the area president you know you have one example she gave me was you know I I collaborated with myself because you know that's what she's hearing from sites because you have one teacher that's collaborating with themselves and the literature uh supports that collaboration is very important amongst professionals collaboration in developing those highlevel lessons that students need to be and tasks that students need to be engaged in are what make a difference and also developing those very important and uh exams right assessments that will move our students toward uh proficiency and or advancement the other thing is we're spread too thin like I mentioned earlier and staff are traveling districtwide are Visual
031and Performing Arts uh staff teachers are traveling from one two three sites at you know sometimes uh special education support uh is also doing the same thing we're spreading them too thin but this is a good opportunity again to maximize our resources but also to give our students that individualized fa to-face support that they need and this will improve that next slide please this is yeah this I'm not going to go over this uh Mr Barbera went over the committee criteria that was developed this is uh the criteria that was developed by the committee by the consolidation committee to identify which of those schools would be the ones that would be recommended for school closure next slide please and what I want to talk about uh here is I had the opportunity after the last
032informational uh board meeting with the community input that we've received emails that I know the board has received and I've received regarding the school closures because nobody wants to close schools no one does and we did have two proposals uh Mr trust uh trustee fam presented a proposal I you know presented a recommendation and I had the opportunity to to meet with Mr fam with President Chavez with my executive team and we had an opportunity to sit down collaborate and identify a now co-created proposal that works that will support and address the $1 million deficit that we that has that we need to um reach right we need to reach the $10 million in savings and so I'm going to go a little bit more into detail and then uh trusty fam you can also
033jump in if if or I'll turn it over to you after so here's what the proposal is going to look like so can you go to the next slide please so the proposal actually closes less schools instead of seven which was what I was recommending it will close Six schools for the 25 and 2026 school year and we have facilities there in parentheses because five schools will close one school will close but then will consolidate there will be two schools uh two School sites that will be closed in the 26 and 20 27 school year but one school would reopen there are three consolidations uh for this uh proposal and there will be three schools that will be redesigned so how many schools are impacted 11 schools will be impacted and actually less students will
034be impacted with this proposal for a total of 2,751 for the 2026 and 2027 school year two schools would be closed one school would open and this would impact a total of students what's the immediate savings the immediate savings is close to $8.5 million for the 2026 and 2027 school year it would be just a little bit over $1 million that would be saved and the goal again for this year is to reach the $10 million in savings that we need uh based on the recommendation of the board from May of last year next slide please so here are the immediate savings it's a little bit uh broken it's broken down uh breaks it down for you for the 8.5 million in this Cod develop proposal uh the breakdown is in reduction in force for
035principles and assistant principles at 2.7 almost $2.8 million for TK and Kinder par Educators a $180,000 savings the reduction in health assistance Community liaison custodians is close to $2.4 million school administrative assistance school office assistance is a one almost $1.4 million the utilities uh since those schools would be closed you're not paying more in utility bills and so there would be a savings of $800,000 uh dollars campus par Educators almost $400,000 and then this year we had four counseling positions that were not filled due to attrition so that gave us a a savings of over $600,000 so we need additional savings so what happens to the other 10 right we now have $10 million in savings we need an additional $10 for the 2025 26 school year so how do we get to that this
036is a breakdown of how we're going to get to the additional $10 million so that we reach fiscal solvency there will be special education reductions of almost $1.9 million we will need less since we are over staffed there will be teacher reductions because we are overstaffed and under enrolled in uh our classes our courses and so therefore we have uh we over hired in uh or retained teachers for the school year and that saves us $1.5 million district office staff reductions we have close to $1.8 million there will be reductions at the district office that will save us that much and then as we continue to move forward with budget development uh through budget development identifying uh you know revisiting the reduction in force that we're going to need to look at re-enrollment our our
037current uh projections for enrollment as we plan for the following school year we will also have reductions there as well and we're also looking at our current contracts services and we're looking to save about $4.8 million with that to get to the additional $10 million can you go to the next slide please so these are the schools that are recommended for closure in this codeveloped revised proposal uh that are recommended for closure recommended for consolidation and also for redesign I will start with the light yellow ones the light yellow ones are the ones that will be redesigned Cesar Chavez uh Early Learning Center uh will be redesigned and will offer zero to prek and will continue at Travis and the other students will attend San Antonio Elementary uh aptitude uh the recommendation is to continue
038uh to redesign aptitude keep it open as a TK to5 uh so that they can continue at aptitude and then grades 6 through eight would attend Okala hover media arts academy would be redesigned as well from grades TK through 5 would continue at hubard grades 6 through 8 would attend Okala I'm going to go with the light pink these are the schools that are being recommended for closure so Meer would be closed and students would attend Ryan dorsa Elementary would be closed and students would attend hubard Puritan would close and students will attend Lindale leaving Lindale open Cassel students would attend aptitude to increase their enrollment and then George would be closed and students would attend Shephard or Rena at Matson I'm going to go with the light yellow one because this one is Renaissance
039Academy at fish fish at Fisher this site uh the School site would be closed but the program would be Consolidated so they would consolidate at Matson the we go with the darker blue these are the schools that are also being Consolidated Adelante one um is being recommended for the 26th and the 27th school year as a consolidation to attend adante at Fisher Adelante 2 would also be a site closure but program consolidate to attend uh at fiser during the 26 27th school year the light green these are the other two schools elementary schools that would be Consolidated Lucha would consolidate at San Antonio elementary and students uh will attend San Antonio so they would keep their program there and then ban men painter Elementary School uh will consolidate with Shephard Middle School keeping their entire
040program intact uh I also want to note there is a footnote in this slide that for the 25 26 school year families will have the option to transfer like they have in the past we do have board policies intradistrict board policies that families can apply to attend other schools in the district and these would be based on school capacity and I'll show you uh more information uh on the what the the school sites would look like with their new capacity and uh enrollment um percentage of utilization can you go to the next slide please so these are these are the students that are impacted by school closures uh again like I mentioned this is broken down by School site uh by the six closures the three consolidations the three redesigns and then again in the
04126 27th school year Atlanta 1 and Atlanta 2 will merge into Renaissance at fiser and for the current enrollment for the 25 26 school year year and I want to clarify that the uh school closures for and the three consolidations and three redesigns uh are for the 2526 school year would impact 2700 and 51 students um and then for the 26 27th school year 874 students would be impacted by the atanta 1 and Atlanta 2 uh consolidation next slide please so this is the uh these are the schools and alumrock uh that would uh continue beginning in the 25 26 school year in this Revis codeveloped proposal um this is broken down by total enrollment it gives you the total enrollment of each of the sites I'm not going to go over every single one
042of them but it also shows you the total school capacity for each of the sites and also the percentage of utilization that we would have uh in our schools uh post closure consolidation and redesigning and only a couple of schools uh Russo uh and where's the other one I'm missing the other one um Russo would still be under 50% um and I thought there was another one but I think I yeah Ryan would be the other one that would be under 50% in their uh percentage of utilization um but none of the schools I want to note that all the sites would have a 0% increase to their original site operational capacity in other words we're not adding additional uh classrooms we're utilizing what the schools were built to a accomodate in their operational capacity
043of enrollment and this is the last slide so what I will do now is uh turn it over to uh trusty fam um president Chavis superintendent can can I make one correction on slide 10 um Joseph George there's an error it says that they will attend Shephard or Renaissance at Matson it's actually um Shephard or Okala oh I'm sorry we didn't catch that so I just wanted to make sure that was clear and correct that thank you okay yes well thank you Mr Sera uh you know I want to say that you know this is an incredibly uh difficult process right uh this is basically a school board members nightmare no no school board member in the right mind should should want to close schools um many of these schools have served this community for
044at least three generations and I'm deeply deeply aware of that um I do want to thank Mr Serta uh Mrs delelis Mrs Garcia Mr too our President Chavez you know we uh I was finishing up you know my annual tour of the disc tour of Allen Rock and you know it's sort of like uh you know the November 21st meeting was very difficult you know there's no sugar coating around that but it's sort of like I get it we had in a sense I had introduced the modified proposal the superintendent had introduced his proposal and the thing is it's sort of like you what is it the old saying so so close yet so far right you know my proposal his proposal uh the what the commun what the Community Committee was able to reach
045consensus on was Bas you know seven seven sites and we were you know the big difference was you know a few more sites and you know we're great you know thankful that we we had this off opportunity to to sit down and you know express our our concerns our frustrations as well uh to find to try to find a middle ground right and I think that Mr Sera and his cabinet heard me and for President Chavez is you know I've always said that uh there should be an even number of schools in in all sections of the district North Central and South to try to hang on to as many amenities as possible uh you know to find find the use uh to the extent possible for uh you know for the preservation of the
046Fisher site in one form or or another no no a prop a school consolidation plan is never perfect it it never is uh you know but I do you know it was you know but we collaborated and I said in the spirit of my own you know uh my previous proposals which have always been to hang on to as much Furniture as possible for Alam Rock for your kids for your families and uh for this communities uh you know things that took took years to build with Bond money and parcel taxes and the original layout of the schools uh you know to preserve them in in so that they can be continued to be used in the future um so you know we you know we have you know there is this plan you know
047that protects you know as many programs as possible as many of our school sites as possible and you know and as always the Hope was to soften the blow to as many Alum rockers is possible you know and uh you know it takes an emotional toll it really does um you know and I know that there will still be people that are angry angry at me or angry at my colleagues angry at administra at the administration and rightfully slow uh you know no one wants to have their schools closed right or Consolidated but you know but the thing was to you know as I I said in the last two meetings you know if everybody pitches in a little you know at least every part of the district has something to to go on with
048right something to continues or I should say some you know hope to wake up another you know not to not to press the snooze button but something to worth getting up for so so with that you know Madam president if I may de you know uh you know if if it's possible right now uh I'd like you know before public comment to move uh you know take if you would take a motion to approve the Cod develop proposal how with with some explicit mostly non-monetary amendments as it pertains to the uh painter Vietnamese dual language immersion program and I'd like to read these amendments for the public please read them thank you uh painter Elementary retains a separate Vietnamese speaking Community liaison to work with the Vietnamese dual language emersion program painter teachers remain separate
049from Shepherd teachers for purposes of uh site level me memorandums of understanding with the Alam Rock Educators Association sufficient classroom space on the painter site to be maintained for grades TK through 2nd along with access to restrooms and playgrounds for the Elementary grades Uh current English program students at painter to be offered a choice to stay with the Consolidated painter those wishing not to continue at the Consolidated painter Elementary May attend molum elementary Russo mckinty Academy adequate separation for painter grade Street of 5 from the sheeper Middle School population to be maintained and painter Elementary retains uh the use of the existing Marquee and I think this that also reflects what what we worked on but you know with you know over the Thanksgiving weekend you know the Vietnamese Community made made their concerns known
050to me and to board President Chavez and you know it is with that that you know uh I felt it necessary to to introduce these explicit amendments uh as it pertains to the consolidation of uh you know the the consolidation of painter with uh Shephard middle and to have it included in the C- develop plan here so I will I will hand one copy to marabel for s and I will hand over one copy for to to distribute among my colleagues and the administration so at this time I am taking men's motion do I have a second I have a second from vice president kingto um any questions okay so I have a first and second we'll First Take public comment um if there's no public comment I will move on to trustee comments uh
051seeing no public comment oh I'll give I'll give you a minute to get up uh every person will have one minute to speak and we're going to have a timer and those that want to speak please line up here at the podium uh orderly please and this is this is for the motion of the school closures and with including the amendment that he just said and usually we have 20 minutes but if we're going to go longer um we will do that but everybody gets exactly one minute and we have a timer that will go off in case anybody goes over and I do want to tell you the whole public and we thank you for sharing your thoughts during public comment while your time is up we truly value your input and encourage you
052to email any additional comments to the Board of Trustees your voice is important to us and wecer appreciate your time and effort so this is me saying everybody please be respectful do one minute anybody that goes over uh will be removed thank you um my name is Tina Ma and I'm a Vietnamese dual language teacher at Ben painter elementary school I'm going to keep this short and simple cuz I wasn't prepared for this but I want to thank all the board members for taking their time and consideration I really ask that you guys keep us as a as a unit and if it there comes a need to consolidate I ask that you guys find a way to keep the vietamese program and the Dual program together right now the English dual program teachers are
053really confused of their whereabouts it seems like the vietamese program is getting more answers to the English duel um my only request along with the other parents of the community is try to keep us together keep the English duel with the Vietnamese dual teachers together as a community thank you again I would like to say thank you so much for all of your work I know it's been very hard and like we say nobody want to close or consolidate the school I appreciate all your work um and appreciate for giving us the opportunity for my child to attend um the Vietnamese dual program and um like Miss ma was saying so we would like as the parents what we really concern we would like the Dual program the Vietnamese dual program to have all the
054grades together um and for safety of uh for our students so if possibly if we can keep even Upper Grade um at the same facility with uh other younger grade together and that' be great thank you so much good evening School Board um I emailed you the list that the school closure committee uh decided on their list was different from the District staff committee I emailed this to all of you guys about three four weeks ago I am appalled number one that dorsa was just thrown on this list last minute and that Community didn't have a chance to speak for themselves they weren't visi that's not okay your information about Raph is conflicting it says closure SL consolidation I'm asking for transparency can we get answers about what's actually going to happen are we being
055Consolidated or are we being closed cuz both words were on your slides both words are on the agenda page five page seven and page eight all have conflicting information about Renaissance at Fisher please give us accurate and transparent information it's not okay to treat elmrock community commun this way it's not okay for the parents to have to go through all of this and then for them to be ignored listen to the community Anna Pia Lopez a mother and an alumni of Fisher first of all want to say thank you to Corina and Mr fam because they were the only trustees that responded to my emails or even address that I emailed them everybody else I'm ashamed of you because as my board members that I voted for I want at least a response back which
056makes me more concerned for my children's education I'm upset because as a parent I want the best for my kids and that's why I went to a school of choice I have the option to keep my children in a charter school and I chose not to because I wanted a parent a school of choice that I knew they were going to get the education that they needed now as a parent I'm more appalled because I voted for you guys and you guys failed to respond to me and attend to the voters rights we spent our tax money on your guys's um Bo and you guys fail us it's it's it saddens me it saddens me because I only have 5 seconds left and if I email you I'm sure you guys will not respond to
057me good afternoon my name is Martha [Music] we've been told about we've been spoken about you've told you've spoken to us about the $20 million deficit and that's the reason you're closing our schools the superintendent presented to us the the cost savings by closing the schools is that for certain is are those cost savings certain it would be a good idea if the lady from the county that's here tonight would be more informed on so we wouldn't have to go through this process in a few more years about closing schools again due to a deficit gracias thank you hello my name is Gustavo Flores I'm a resident from the mayfer community for almost 35 years I think you all know we have a lot of concerns in our community a lot but education is the
058first one I ask you to please look at your side this is your community community who needs you right now please don't close more schools [Applause] good afternoon good afternoon my name is CLA quo a proud parent of the Alamar schools district I've been attending these board meetings for about a year now and fully understand why we're here and why how we got to this point um as you guys vote today I do I would like for you all to keep in mind um not only our Alamar students uh and parents but also our beautiful Mayer Community who have all who have already suffered the hit of our school closures in the past so I ask you all to keep our Mayfair uh schools open as well as hubard who serve families not only academically
059but just as equally important with our community resource center um and you know I would like for you guys to keep that in mind because they also serve your parents and students with resources so let's continue to work together side-by side with community and um make this beautiful District what it should be for our students [Applause] good evening Board of Trustees Jeremy Bru director of policy and organizing with Amigos de Guadalupe Center for justice and empowerment we serve the families of the Mayfair neighborhood of Ean Jose who is home to the lowest income census tracks in Santa Clara County we know that the board has a very tough decision to make tonight and myself as also a fellow School Board member can't imagine the tough decision you have before you but we hope that you
060can look at this item through an equity lens and think of those who would be impacted by the school closures and call and consolidations the most with this in mind we come to the board tonight with four asks keep schools in Mayfair and hubard open Mayfair has already endured previous rounds of cuts and we can't afford yet another school closure um also end some of the concerning messaging uh about our students we as the Community want to stand with the school district uh to take a stand against such language support all students turn the Transitions and thank you for your comments next speaker [Applause] please I've asked my colleague to help me out we just want to say thank you from painter for all the hard work thank you you can [Applause] hi my name
061is Isabella NIS and I'm a student from attitude Academy and um I don't want you guys to close the school down because or move schools because I have friends there and I grew up in that school I graduated kindergarten and I'm in sixth grade and I want to finish my year off there hi hi my name is Ryan and I want to ask you to not close middle school because they have a lot of good teachers thank [Applause] you my name is Fe and I have a TK student in the Vietnamese emersion program at painter we've only been at the school a few months but it's easy to see there's something really special about Painter with the blending of cultures of the Vietnamese program alongside the English program I'd like to speak about the point
062about third through fifth graders um being moved from painter to Shephard um if George middle is moved into the Shephard campus that wasn't mean the elementary age students would be greatly outnumbered on Middle School age students and feel out of place Logistics such as having bathrooms for the um students with such a wide age range can prove challenge in and these factors can negatively affect students emotionally and academically consolidating pain into Shepherd will likely mean some Future Families may not be interested in joining the programs and some current families may leave the program due to concerns of student safety and emotional wellbeing and losing these families would mean losing those who have contributed to the enrollment and increased enrollment and success of the vdl program i' also like to advocate for Dr Manuka and is
063an admin staff to say at painter because they contribute to the excess of the school thank for your comments next speaker please hi I'm a parent of uh a child at adante 1 I wanted to make some brief comments about you know the the eventual consolidation or plan consolidation of atlante 1 and two um I can tell you from personal experience seeing this that there is a true human cost to consolidating schools it's not just cramming two schools into one facility and thinking everything is going to go exactly as planned you are rewriting the DNA of how that school is of what it means to the students and the Educators that teach our children and as a parent it it's frightens me at what you're looking to do I understand it's necessary but I also
064understand that we have to do it with care and caution the last thing I wanted to mention in the 18 seconds I have left um I understand that the name of trusty fam and President Chavez is on the revised proposal that the superintendent is putting out there I ask you to consider recusing yourself from this vote because in reality you've added comment input insight opinions you shouldn't be voting on it thank you for your comments next speaker [Applause] please dear board members and uh Community my name is Oscar and I'm a I'm a concerned I'm a Community member here regarding the sko closur proposals we understand that the closur are largely a result of equal funding from the state as well as rising cost of living which has led to families moving out of mayfer
065in the East Side neighborhoods I'm here because I want to make sure May fa and and hubard schools are stay open urge the board and parents to unite so we can Lobby decision makers for the need for our students stop racist narratives about neighborhoods like Mayfair and the neighborhood uh hubard Community ensure that all students particularly low-income ESL special education students receive additional support needed during the during this transition I urge you to keep Mayfair and Hubbert open address the harmful language directed to our students by some uh elmro parents and provide more support for all students [Applause] gracias almost I mean let's call it for what it is we have the largest country in the world California has the fifth largest economy as well and yet still we're fighting over closing schools that's a
066shame there's no winners here but it also shows that it is possible there's resources and money that we can go and and Advocate and work together for we all talked about contributing to this crisis of closing out schools well mayfer has already pitched in and we're going to put a period on that we stand by our our priorities keeping hover and mayfer schools open both of these schools are in the poorest sensus Tracks please do not show any bias against low-income families by cutting or threaten threatening those schools in comparison to all schools as well we have some of the highest numbers of low-income students foster care and English Learners these students need support they don't need to be punished or their educational Pathways cut down down and I will end by saying that we
067stand firm we're working with you and all the parents they're not going to remember us for how many schools we close they'll remember us for what we did after that thank you for your comments next speaker please good afternoon my name isali Martinez and I was raised in the east side of San Jose in the Mayer Community um growing up I experienced a lot of school closures um we experienced a lot of the lack of opportunities the lack of resources for our students and it's just so sad to see that one more school is going to be closing I remember I went to ele the elementary school um Cesar Chavez from there we're supposed to go to um well we're encouraged to go to Lee Matson however students are no longer going to have that
068option they're going to have to travel far away a lot of us are lowincome we don't have cars everywhere we we don't have bikes all the time we do have to take the bus and if you look at the bus system it's not very secure for our students and it's very very very hard to have to send our kids to school and know that they they might go and encounter a few a few things that they shouldn't have to go through so please um keep school thank you for your comments next speaker please hello how are you board members my name is Mr Mendoza and I'm with Amigos Guadalupe Center for usce and empowerment I never been here before in this building but I'm forced to be here here because I heard that the schools
069are closing so we want to help the community members that are more affected $20 million and deficit that's because mismanage okay and because the economy the economy and our people are living our kids are living okay and that's not fair and you know who's the most affected the kids right the kids and the thing also Mayfair Mayfair if you know about Equity okay you know about Mayfair with the bario okay with the lowest okay and the most affected community members so please you're already consolidating San Antonio and Lucha great no problem that's in your proposal and all of that kind of stuff leave uh m m Matson renaissan alone please because that's the only high school we have in May first thank you for your comments next speaker [Applause] please hello everybody my name is
070laa uh I have three childr and I have lived in isan Jose for over 25 years we have seen how isan Jose has been changing over the last few decades and unfortunately he has not been for the better my children have seen the displacement of friends and families du it to the high rent increases and all of this has been very traumatic for me and them and also for our entire Community now I'm here to let you know that is not fair that do to to poor money management the ones who are most affected are us the one putting our taxes in this district and boing for you I do not support any scho closures our Mayfair Community has already suffered from scho closures before and this has already affect my family mentally a lot
071my son miguelangel used to be at Lua Elementary School and at this moment he's happily going at mson why is important that M no close is a community where most of our children are extremely low income thank you for your comments next speaker please dear trustees my name is Juan EST Strada and Adelante one parent for my fifth grade daughter Bella she loves her school her classmates and her teachers fortunately her desire to protect her school is consistent with your goal to protect the district you're being forced to make Cuts not to stop planning for a brighter future while well intentioned the proposal to move adante 1 and two to the Fisher site appears to be inconsistent with reducing ing the deficit this action could reduce potential savings Additionally the loss of any students due
072to the move would reduce Revenue lastly reducing student capacity will inhibit additional future Revenue we need more room for more Spanish emergence students not less I four requests leave ad Delante one and two at the current locations protect the Vietnamese emerging School leave Lindale in place to continue to best serve that population and begin planning for ad deante 3 and a second Vietnamese emerence school perhaps joining Renaissance at fiser thank you [Applause] you good evening this is a letter from my fifth grader who attends Adan 1 his name is modles he says I'm a fifth grader at adanta 1 and I'm writing because I think the proposal to keep Atlantic one and two were the are are are the best if things change it don't cost the district more money to move both adanes to
073Fisher but also you know um he wanted also me to express to you that there is a lot of emotional and psychological stress that the students are going through right now because they're thinking what about my friends or what have you so moving forward I hope that this board you know can create like a a transition team so that there's more insight and more communication for our communities hi my name is an and I'm a parent of three students at Ben painter sorry I'm short we ask that you keep the English and Vietnamese programs together to further our goal of raising globally minded and inclusive kids of all cultures we also ask that you keep the elementary kids all of them including the three the third and fifth grade four through fourth grader fourth and
074fifth sorry graders on the painter campus separate from the middle school kids Shephard will absorb George and there will be too many big kids with our young ones besides physical safety concerns we also worry about peer pressure and social media and bullying lastly we also ask that Dr manuco stay with painter and Shephard he is integral to Growing our program including the enrollment and the curriculum and he's key to our school and this District in his current position at painter thank you so much hi I'm sorry hi I'm yaria teacher again this is considering what is already being put at the table since it appears inevitable that fisher A1 and A2 are on the chopping block once again let's at least be strategic about this after the 2526 school year based off current knowledge of
075students trickling in due to looming school closures A2 alone should be moved to Fisher for the 26 27 school year the district should track student population growth for two years if the school is growing continue to keep both A1 and A2 separate as to maximize potential Revenue to alleviate debt if A2 is not growing then at this point with data driving this decision merge both A1 and A2 onto the updated Fisher campus moving A2 to Fisher would have a lesser negative impact on the community as we would have a year to buffer the transition as our current location is near proximity uh no reason to cut Revenue making schools thank you uh good evening thank you very much to superintendent Serta to the committee and the board thank you very much for having us and
076listening to continuing listening to the community and what they have to say uh I am a parent of three at Ben painter or P painter Shephard and I just wanted to urge you that um what Anna was saying before please keep Mr manuco Dr manuco with the program uh vital to keeping students encouraged and come into the alar school district and the program um also to keep the English program with uh with them as well um there's no need to segregate both programs especially if we're looking to consolidate with Shephard we should have plenty of space for that as well and an enriching environment for all of those students I also want to say that uh it's it's I want to urge you not to put the 3 through 5 in with the 6 through
0778 physically it's in one location one school but at a physical location I I have three kids all in the sub five uh grades and I believe that they should not be actually there's studies that show that should not be together with the six thank you for your comments next speaker my name is Norma pimel I want to correct this we hear about you know it's all about emotional emotional T but it's not only about emotions we want our voices to be truly heard as a parent I'm very ashamed my daughter has witnessed what this district has done to our community it's the second time I'm here I would like for any of you some type of advice of what to tell my daughter when she's asking me why is my school being closed for
078the second time can somebody respond to that please can somebody answer to me Mr roio can you please respond to that why we can't respond they've heard your comments and when they make their comments they can respond yeah because this is the second time that they sent a superintendent to my school and I asked the same question my daughter suffers from anxiety and she keep asking why is my school being closed for a second time why they don't listen to us why you fighting over and over and nobody listen to us so I want to know how to answer to my daughters be because we're Bound by the brown act the law we're not supposed to respond so if we don't respond that's the reason why so you can always email us uh your thoughts
079they don't even answer the email and so ex that's it okay thank you next speaker hello superintendent trustees my name is Francisco loano I'm a teacher at adalante and I'm also the proud father of two adalante students um I'm here because I'm concerned about the um Financial viability of the of uh the current plan I was earlier was stated that this plan will affect fewer students than the superintendent's original proposal but that's only true if you don't add the 874 students at adalante 1 and adante 2 when you do this plan affects 3,625 students that's 810 more students than the superintendent's original plan that uh the original plan affected 10 schools this proposal affects 13 schools one of the guiding principles was to affect the fewest amount of students and that's because this closing school
080has an emotional impact it has an academic impact on student achievement not only that you will lose about 10 15 20% of those 800 more students that's 80 students times 15,000 that's $1.3 million thank for your comments next speaker please hello honorable trustees uh board president uh superintendent Administration uh my name is Peter Ortiz I'm the council member for this area for District 5 with the city of San Jose uh I just want to acknowledge the tough situation that you guys are all in here today um as the superintendent said no trustee runs for office because they want to close schools and I know majority of you guys are from the East side so I know this hurts you guys uh uh as well I also want to acknowledge the parents the activists the teachers
081who are all here as well out of fear for their kids out of fear for their jobs out of fear for their their community and I know you're your heartbreaking your your heart is breaking right now as well so I want to acknowledge you um I think you know the process in my in in our communication superintend it's been very transparent the only thing I ask is that Equity is taken into consideration Alam Rock uh is filled with our immigrant population our working class our communities of color um and our most vulnerable and so I'm hoping that this decision impacts them the least thank you so [Applause] much hi board members superintendent thank you guys for your time being here today as a former student former employee and a mom here in Alam Rock I
082just ask you guys to think of three groups that are very close to my heart our special ed students our parents who do not drive and our classifi employees who always get the worst hit when we do cuts and these are the ones that our students see first that get close to develop relationships with and I know that closing schools is inevitable we can't stop it it has to happen and let's find solutions for the future to avoid these things things from happening but I don't envy you guys thank you for your service because this is a hard decision and um I just want you guys to be mindful of those groups because a lot of our parents don't drive and depend on Grandma big brother to drop off the students and when we make
083these closures we got to be mindful that is there going to be Transportation provided for thank you for your comments next speaker please good evening Linda Beltran uh kto if you really cared about about the process stop the work house housing project as as it was recommended to you you seem to be the puppet master of traveis and fam it's clear you run the show if the county rep was here I'd ask him to really look at those numbers because that as far as it goes right now I don't trust you guys to give the accurate numbers and maybe even manipulate Teresa to change the numbers there's still not a lot of mention on phase two of more closures and more changes to happen um our very educated recommendation left a middle and elementary in
084each quadrant of the map able to serve each neighborhood with feasible walking distance we were informed that the trustees could not come up with their own recommendation then why create a committee and hire a superintendent we were also advised to meet outside of these walls to do the the due to the constraint and time we had to give an educated recommendation we were told we had uh to cut 10 million in year one thank you for your comments next speaker please you give us a second r J thank you thank you for your comment allow for translation yes allow me to do the side translation of her script thank you oh sorry now my phone so I need to as a parent I'm concerned about the propo the possible proposal of the school of closing
085schools like Lindale it's a school that's very important for our community due to its infrastructure and the support it provides for Special Ed I understand as a district we have a lot of work to do to maintain our school open we need to advocate for the for those school districts so they can receive Equitable funding um actually it's all about currently it's all about postal codes or Postal zones I think it's about resolving the issue with closing the schools which is more important we have to advocate for a student our students who are in the disadvantage and where it's important to defend the quality of Education of our children we're in one of the state one we are in one of the richest states that has the most money and manages the most money and
086it's subser absurd that we're living this and going through with this and our education is going through this in the east side of San Jose finally I would like to emphasize for all the community that this is not a competition among schools or a contest among among schools it's which school is better or which school is going to win today December the 2nd let it be the in the start for the entire Community to work together and to demand transparency for at the district we need our voices to be heard don't shut down our voices of our teachers our children and our fames that represent Lindale keep Lindale open thank you hi good evening my name is Victoria partia I am a parent at Adelante to and I ask you not to consolidate these two
087schools when we talk to our families um we talk about the school the size of the school I love it Mr Cortez at adante too knows my my child's name not because he's a troublemaker but because he knows a lot of the families we like it that is a small school when you ask people why they've left the district they've mentioned that the school size is a big factor they mention the charter schools they mentioned that those charter schools have a Smalls siiz classrooms they have everybody knows each other you're talking about consolidating two schools which would make over 800 students at one site how does that even sound okay and their children too their small children our program is growing and is doing well why do you want to break something that's not broken
088please don't consolidate the two schools thank you good evening my name is Maria orisa and I'm here in representation of the leaders and community members of Mayer that weren't able to make it tonight and I want to share with you our demands one is to keep mayfer and H schools open we had enough already and um to the races messaging about our maer and hover Latin students three uh more support for students during these um hard times and lastly we would like to invite you all the board to join us unite and advocate for more funding for all our students thank you [Applause] my name isia I'm here uh from hubard media arts school I'm hearing everything that's going on and I know you're not gonna you're not going to close it for the time
089being at the same time you're saying that you're going to remove remove sixth seventh and eighth grade so you're going to be ending up sending the kids to Charter Schools I mean where are the kids from H going go for middle school they're going to go to alphaa is too far away not all parents drive in addition to that if you're gonna only have kindergarten if I have one student in elementary and another one in Middle I'm going to take I'm going to take my my child to the school which is more appropriate for his grade level is a community hub for the we have our monthly meetings at our community center because we don't have one that's the only one we have for the time being I'm pleased that you're not going to consider
090closing hover thank you for your comments next speaker [Applause] please our next parent is going to read her script in Spanish Her speech in Spanish and I'll read the read in English for the board thank you Marina hello my name is Maria Marina I'm a parent please don't school don't close Fisher um middle school the principal and the teachers they've focused a lot on my son to help him out they help him a lot the teachers the teachers there helped them a lot because he doesn't know English and the school that you're considering ing sending my son to which is Okala it's too far away for us we don't have our own vehicle our own car my son walks to school every day Fisher is an excellent school I have so many things to say
091but since you you limit us with one minute I can't express it all thank [Applause] you my name is Lisa tothill I've tried to make the case for why Renaissance at Fisher deserves to be preserved but it's become clear that our voices are not being heard this experience has revealed what's truly happening behind the scenes so now it's time for us to turn our Focus inward to each other and to our community this is no longer just about making our voices heard it's about taking action we had have a responsibility to hold those in power accountable first we must take our case to the Santa Clara Department of educ ation it's that if that doesn't yield results we will escalate further to the California Department of Education where we will be demand Justice and file
092a formal civil rights complaint if necessary we will go we will not go we will not continue to have our voices be silenced in this community together as a United Community we will stand up for our students our values and our future [Applause] my name is Harry wi from the Dual Vietnamese language program our program and our families are a community we deserve to be kept together and not split between two facilities I think you've already heard too that a lot of our parents have concerns about splitting grades three through five in a middle school setting I think that is inappropriate we need the administrative resources including principal manuco the teachers and the administrative sta staff to thrive and grow we need the space we've been growing we've been growing from 50 students to projected
093over 240 students next year in a matter of four years and we we just need the the space and the resources this weekend we have um over 120 parents that have outlined our concerns in a letter can we distribute that letter to you thank you thank you for your comments than speaker hi my name is Juliana and I'm supporting Renaissance Academy at Fisher I would like to acknowledge the amazing teachers who have been there to support me and help me with my education the teachers at renissance care about me as a person and a student I enjoy being a part of all the programs that they have to offer like Mesa steam te Squad bossy and girls who code they have helped me grow I am here today in front of you giving a speech
094thanks to Renaissance for what I want closing our school would not impact my community but my education hi my name is a g and I am a parent of a child at Renaissance at fiser you're planning to not only close a middle school in a great Community but all the resources that are around it with all the elementary schools that you have now mentioned to close you say that you don't want to close schools that are closed in a certain Community but you're closing four of them dorsa Meyer Renaissance and casselle so what are you leaving to that Community you can see the potential that the that the campus has because you want to hand it over to another school then why not let the Renaissance family keep it I keep hearing the same thing
095that it's hard to make the choices and that so many things go go into making this decision but at the same time we the community are not being heard I emailed everyone on the board but I only heard back from one person and this was multiple emails that I sent if you are not listening to the community when we are here in front of you I can't imagine what happens behind closed doors leave renissance at Fisher at this site and bring other schools to this campus you can see the potential it has good afternoon my name is asalia Rano I'm a parent leader and a part of SOS Mayfair Community uh we heard your proposals and we know it's going to be hard for everyone a lot is changing but what I'd like to know
096is what are you changing what is uh because so far the plan is used to cash out of multiple schools and programs uh we need to go further as a community we support our kids so that means we support you but please stop waiting for last minute uh School closures uh we are a big Community please keep Mayfair Community Mayfair schools open hello uh my name is Fred bozo I'm the uh director of advocacy and Community engagement for Catholic Charities and in that capacity I work with many parishioners who will be impacted by the decision you make tonight and and make make no mistake the decision you make tonight is a kind of systemic change it's just a kind of systemic change that you know we we don't want or that folks don't don't want
097and so but understanding that closures may be seemingly unavoidable you know we think that whatever you do has to prioritize obviously an equitable process Equitable decision making and have a least amount of impact on families given the timing uh of this of this decision um you know we read very closely the letter that so almost Mayfair has submitted and we believe that it contains a lot of great ideas uh we believe that the Mayfair schools should be saved as it states in that letter and uh I thank you very much for your time good evening everyone my name is flor de Leon my kids used to be a Lucha and Renaissance at feature and today I'm here as a community member um Clos closure schools uh the 20 million budget is talk many years ago
098so this is a consequence of that and now we are here but I think the problem is bigger and now that we have someone from the Board of Education I want to ask you guys and you guys e for e I 6 for so the e for e after I for I what e this to perpetrate rism and oppression in thank you for your comments next speaker [Applause] please good evening board members and Community I left my trusty trifold at home tonight but I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for considering the idea of instead of closing both cured and Lindale which was one of the recommendations at a minimum keeping Lindell open besides besides the fact that we are an extremely close distance to two Charter Schools we have a non-transferable
099community Grant substantial amount of money earmarked in fonds extraordinary sped program and no neighboring schools to walk to um keeping us open leaves us available to receive our cure to neighbors clothing both schools in that pocket of alrock would be a major travesty we have done many trainings workshops and staff development days with Curtin over the years since we are in the vapa cluster together proximity wise we are as close to Kon than the formerly proposed receiving School of Linda Vista we are excited to have a buling campus again we are a staff looking forward to full teams to collaborate with when I started at Lindell we were sixth grade six second grade teachers I now I'm on a team of two we are welcome we're welcoming our vapa friends thank you for your comments
100next speaker please good evening board uh Board of Trustees uh my name is Carlos District 4 I am also here echoing the voices of many and the sentiments of many of police keeping of open Mayfair and hub schools right our community has been through enough right many of the families here have been through many closures and we want prevent that happening in the future instead of fighting and being D diversive we should come unite and ask for more funding unite right County city state for more funding and keep fighting for our children fighting for the Youth because it's them the future's in their hands and it breaks my heart that all the schools are being considered to closure knowing that we're in one of the richest areas in California you be ashamed of yourselves you
101failing our students are failing our future so please when you make a decision don't put yourselves and in that decision put the fames in your in their minds thank you [Applause] good evening I worked for seven years at one of the schools in [Music] Campbell they don't have what's going on here tonight over there about school closures about kids not going to school think about Z good evening my name is here to support a lot of the schools that a lot of people here are supporting it's not about us it's about our children as a as members of the board do you love the El Rock District why did you take the easy route out closing schools instead of looking for solutions for example why not donate one of your month's highest paid salar donate
102one month of your high highly paid salary salary thank you good evening my name is Olivia Ortiz and I'm a PR mother at renesent mson I want to thank you guys I want to thank superintendent trusty fan for putting the for recommendations and see this decision in equity lens I know it's really hard I know it was really hard and it still is really hard to you know to make a decision about you know our school closures but I do want to I do want to speak on the fact that you guys were looking at this in equity lens and try to be more uh Fair on the um on our whole area of the school district for e for for for spe e for spe for for e un for for for at Fisher
103their capacity is 1,105 uh that it's 1,200 1,200 I'm sorry so it's 1,200 so so there is room for growth but I also wanted to address the the question know but uh but that's at fiser how much growth is there if you kept Avante one and two at their current sites you have yes yes we do so actually adalante 1 is close to capacity by okay by actually a few dozen students whereas adant 2 has enough growth for maybe aund my my M for by a couple hundred or so yeah a couple of hundred or so okay so that that will cap them out um if they continue to grow yes so the previous argument to keep the other where they were so they could grow doesn't hold cuz you're saying putting them together at
104fer is how much so I'm hearing 200 how it currently exists if it were to be Consolidated what's the what's the difference if they were to be consolid y there uh there's about a 400 um um 400 student growth uh possibility F okay and um adante to there's a couple of hundred okay and and also um there as um trusty fam said there're also the facilities to keep in mind you know the PE facilities the locker rooms the gym the fields yep all those fa and then why the year delay so so the and that's what I wanted to address the the year delay in the other proposal uh that I had presented in the previous presentations is the there more students would be impacted if you make the change next year because the facilities
105at fiser would not be ready and so therefore there was a recommendation to send those students to other schools that had the TK Kinder which would be it it's going to take an uh it's going to take about a year and a half to have the facilities ready at fiser for the tkk students and so we wanted to make sure that if we're making that recommendation it gives us time to work with the architect to work on making sure that the room I have a question about how the proposer proposers can explain that the criteria that the board set out at the very beginning that's been mentioned multiple times in multiple presentations um why um now we're including sort of uh campuses that are adjacent to libraries or campuses that are adjacent to Parks because
106if there were certain campuses that were deemed you know they're they're too big to close or whatever I'm I'm trying to figure out um how how in particular the crit criteria change for the proposers okay I'll address one of them so at the Fisher site the library is there it's going to stay there uh in order to uh get that up and running for the TK they're going to have to be down the street um and then they can move in so that's a waiting period of a year maybe for those students but they're close enough to move over they have room to grow the library is going to be there but the thing is we're looking at all the things the amenities that are there that we if we close it we're not going
107to be able to have enough money to have those things there again a track and field so that takes a lot of money will we have the extra money to be able to put that again probably not so we're trying to say wait second I'm still not finished if you're going to interrupt then let me know you you know you have well let me finish my thought first and then you can have another question but that's still that's still you're not letting me finish so if you're going to cut my answer off then I'll make sure that I put it satisfied with your answer okay thank you so let me know okay like this but don't cut me off or else I'll return the favor go ahead your next question e so the so where
108I'm coming at this is from I'm trying to understand so I just have and I again I don't want to be here till 11 o'clock at night so um I just want to understand sort of the proposer thought process given that we set out a criteria and that it seems to be changing so I hear what you're saying um and so I wanted to ask because I'm really not understanding the painter um Shepherd um and maybe it's because it's it's it's just a lot a lot to like take in right now with the new proposal so could you explain uh what's happening with painter under this proposal yes under under this proposal what is happening with painter you would keep and I think the there's some confus conf usion around the English only students that
109are not part of the Vietnamese dual language program they would continue at the school with the DU from painter but also we would give them their contiguous space so that they are not completely uh mixed with with all the uh Shepherd students and so they would remain the English only if they do not want to continue at the you know with this model then they would have the option to transfer and so that's part of The Proposal that uh trusty uh fam had also added as the addendum to I'm also going to add on that because I when I proposed it 18 months ago to move the painter students into shepher that was the idea so it was not a last minute change I always said that from all along thank you so the the
110slide 12 that we looked at um beginning 25 26 it it only has Shepherd on it it doesn't have painter so I'm just wanting to be clear it's a my I'm just trying to this one's showing you what the schools slide 12 is showing you which schools would remain beginning in 2025 2026 school years uh on with the uh Cod develop proposal and so we're only showing Shephard because that's what the school would look like but it would be accommodating Lucha and Lucha uh would keep its program pain a painter I'm sorry so it would be so we would have painter as a Elementary or is painter and Shepherd a k to eight so so it would be both so it would be a it would have the program the painter program program the Vietnamese
111learning uh dual emerging learning program and it would give it the opportunity to expand and grow it would be both um okay now I'm now I'm that's okay so so on slide 10 it says consolidating painter and then so would it be a k to8 it would be a k to eight not a middle or a one I I'm just I don't see painter on the list yeah it would be part of Shephard so it's not just a middle school correct okay because we because you have am I on the right slide 12 because I don't see K to eight I only see other lante one other lante 2 is a k to eight and I I see sheer the middle can you speak to the M on the mic can you speak on the
112mic wa didn't painter would be part of the shepherd campus as a as a program as an elementary school as an elementary program I so it's so it's missing from the slide 12 it should actually be on the K8 okay so okay so we would make that correction okay so painter Shephard you're proposing it to be a KD okay thank you um just trying to follow does that is that so well I would proposer is that correct I mam president I may it for the most part yes so it it sort of I think of it as a Quai K to8 you know because you know Not only would you know they're you know the the greates three to five would you know well I could should reference my amendments but you know a portion
113of it would be you know in the Upper Elementary grades would would occupy space in painter we retain use partial use of the painter site for the lower elementary grades because of the restrooms and the playground access uh but it would be it would be you know for lack of a better term a quazi k to8 right because you know we would have this you know the Ben painter consolidation you know in which Che but also uh Shephard would con you know would continue to accept students from the northern part of the district the uh McCullum Elementary the Russo mckinty Elementary and parts of the Linda Vista uh Elementary boundaries as well okay I'll end my questions for now thanks any other trustees uh truste men H Madam pres you know you know clarification question
114to the uh superintendent you know in in part of the original proposal you know you had mentioned transportation and safe routes you know in the November 14th proposal because you know we we do have we do have parents concerned about Transportation so just wanted to clarify for the community you know uh is it you know is the administration still committed to ensuring a transportation and safe routes plan that's correct I will be um actually scheduled to meet with the mayor uh later this month uh to discuss this as well for the safe routes uh but also we're exploring the uh possibility which I've mentioned in the previous presentations uh and board meetings uh that we are exploring shuttle stops uh so that we could offer some form of transportation for for our families thank you
115you're welcome um I ask can you I don't know if trust have any question do you have any questions am I the last one nobody else do you have any questions uh trust you don't have any questions no she say she does she say she does okay you want to ask your question now no she's she's on the phone can you ask your question trust can you hear can you hear un can you unmute yourself okay no all right I had asked questions already I'm just kidding do you have any questions am I the last one nobody you have any questions trusta I have comments and questions I have both okay can you pleas yes we are waiting great um so my first one to superintendent said that let me turn my bell no I
116think it's mine no it was mine okay um and let's see did I'm I'm trying to think because you know I I had already uh received your proposal U or the proposal that we had on Wednesday I had reviewed the board book and so then we got this one a couple of hours ago so I haven't been able to you know uh compare the two did the first one that you present um superintendent said that did that bring in more savings than this one uh yes it did and if you can um speak up loud because I can't yes it did okay how much more savings did the previous proposal bring in compared to this one it was approxim what the difference it was approximately $9.7 million so it's about 1.3 almost 1 1.3 am
117I doing the math correct it's 8.5 it's about 8.5 so about $1.2 million uh less so the proposal that had originally been proposed on Wednesday that we read had that much more in savings correct okay um well you know I mean I've heard many public comments received many emails and met with several parents throughout this process um I was able to hear my peers review as I mentioned the board book that we received on Wednesday uh with what I thought was going to be the recommendation and as of this um morning I you know I worked hard and I you know turned things over but I thought I had made my decision um not based on any any emotional ties or any biases but on the information provided to us by the school consolidation community
118and our staff um along with you know public comments and and everything else I do want to say I appreciate everyone who took the time to be a part of the school consolidation committee because that took a lot of time from parents community members leaders um to come together and as we've heard over and over and can imagine wasn't easy and weren't easy conversation so much so that even within the school consolidation committee there weren't agreements um as Mr Barbara pointed out and you know some felt they had a meet outside in addition to the time they had met others didn't feel like you know they were in agreement with that but nevertheless there was a process that took time um I am concerned you know about just the way that today's uh recommendation kind
119of came about because clearly board President Chavez and Min uh trusty fam are both bosses of superintendent Serta so there's no way that superintendent zerto is going to go against that so I just want to point that out as one of the five board members that I I mean I don't know and I'm not saying you know superintendent s that you're against this I'm just saying just that possibility when two board members one being the board president um sit with you and create this process together that really concerns me however I do know that at the end of the today's conversation you know to uh prevent from being taken over by the the county and or the state eventually that we do need to make a decision so I get that you know so I'm
120really stuck right now um but I do want to talk about that process because it's not already it's not easy um and some of the stuff has made it made it even harder for me um so you know superintendent said that I know we're going to make these tough decisions and in one way or another um many of our students and families will be affected have we factored in the resources that it's going to take for our students that are transitioning to new schools um having academic or emotional uh additional needs because of the changes um and or special attention that might have to be given to students with special needs are English Learners and low-income students uh yes uh we have actually and so and that's actually we're going to continue to evaluate and
121assess uh throughout you know the the process as we transition post the board's decision um because the other thing we're going to have to monitor we're going to have to go through uh you know enrollment projections uh we're going to have to make decisions on the uh like I mentioned in the presentation the uh reduction in force for teaching positions for additional positions but also evaluating um you know what the need is going to be post uh you know the closure of the schools and then reopening in the uh 2526 school year because we're going to have to be ready for that transportation is also going to be another key that we're we're looking at as well because we're not cutting uh recommending any Cuts there for that same reason that we want to ensure
122that we have some form of transportation for our uh students and families and and yes the mental health is is important uh Mr Barbara has mentioned multiple times in his presentation there is is a psychological toe and so we're going to we're going to have to prepare for that as well and provide those supports for our students okay I'm trying to manage these two things thank you for your patience um also uh as some of our partners pointed out you know hovert is in one area one of the census tracks with the highest poverty levels and I just want to you know make sure we keep that in mind when making some of our decisions um I do understand that we're not recommending or the recommendation is not to close hover but to um you
123know shift the K through five and not this year but the following year or not for this next upcoming year but the following year I just you know I want to um have us really think about that because if we talk about not wanting to you know send our students to sh Charter Schools they will with what we've heard and what we know about our parents walk our students to school it really won't be like by choice like they will have to send them to the charter schools in that area because of you know access to transportation and things like that so as we move and you know we're gonna have to spend more money on transportation to keep them in our district just let's think about that um and I hope that you know
124this was thought of when when making the the recommendations um so also in addition um you know having sat through some of these comments and even having received some phone calls from parents who were a part of the cons consolidation committee I'm really being freaked out about gains and things like that I was like wow I wonder what's being said because you know um just some of the the comments and thoughts so anyways at this point I want to you know firmly and um publicly state that we as a community um and me as a trustee one of the five but I stand against any uh rhetoric that you know will make any of our students criminals or gang infested or anything like that and um superintendent said that I look forward to working with
125you and how I mean obviously we can't change our parents and what they say right we can just encourage our students and hopefully uh you know hope that our students when they go back home uh reflect sometimes to their parents of like that's not ni mom or dad or Guardian um but you know I look forward to taking a strong stand against any type of uh um language that might put any of our community within Alro or students um in that in that space so uh I just want to make sure that here publicly I I state that um and then commit to restorative practices to ensure that every student regardless of where they live or who they are feel safe um and a part of and uplifted and motivated in our district um and
126then let's see oh yes uniting uh to advocate for more funding for our schools I love it I love hearing that um I think one of my favorite Parts in today's meeting and the emails that I received was our uh city council member Peter Ortiz um who came and also spoke on that and I look forward to coming together not just as students as parents who have come here with us but also as our city council member standing with us who also gets to Advocate with us um for his area in the schools um I look forward to doing that on behalf of our our district to get bring in more funding um for our schools for our students um and so yeah so I'm excited about that parents uh and community members and leaders
127I look forward again to uh making sure that we come together to make that happen um because it's United that we're going to be able to make these decisions and um make sure that not just us not just us I listen to you all but also that our our uh leaders within local jurisdictions uh council member Ortiz uh County board members um our state legislature and our um Federal I mean we get to do it all we get to come together and work together and not work against each other you know which unfortunately some of these process sometimes do um it's like people against the school board members no how do we come together to go and Advocate on behalf of those we represent so I look forward to doing more of that um and
128with that I'll just pause right here okay um uh vice president GTO um well first of all I want to thank everybody who's come out and speak uh and participate in the process I it's it's a as been said before it's a very difficult process it's nothing that anybody said well let me sign up for that um that's not what you sign up for you sign up to cut the ribbon on a new school to do new stuff we don't sign up to shut down schools um however I'm I'm very concerned about the narrative that's been created saying that Alam Rock has been taking the can down the road and I think that may have come up um in some way sort of well-intentioned by an individual who's ill informed uh one of our colleagues
129who decided to start using this Narrative of kicking the can down the road and this is not a microaggression any way she performs is clarifying the record that Alam Rock has been undergoing uh this this this process for a long time we can drive down what is now uh the um the the job course site that used to be Richard conif school that shut down years ago clearly there was a trend moving in a certain direction that necessitated them to to to to no longer have that as one of our schools um prior to me joining this board the board went ahead and handed over a site for a very low price to a charter school that's right here next to us in the old historic building uh that used to be the district headquarters
130of alrock um it was declining enrollment they saw that as a an option they saw that as an easy fix um I didn't agree with it I joined this board and I said we're going to fight this uh right as I was coming on to the board there's a decision made prior to me from joining to go ahead and move on sler and so we lost loner you know a school that uh my my cousins went to and I remember very well as a kid so there was all kinds of family connections we then are faced with the decision that uh we have a very shrinking has been mentioned by one of our speakers that Rogers went ahead and Consolidated into uh Atlanta atanta was growing and Leaps and Bounds uh we were leaving kids
131there by the hundreds in waiting list which uh I said this is ridiculous we're leaving people on waiting list it makes absolutely no sense then superintendent and I got to give full credit to then superintendent fist who uh went ahead and took some very Extraordinary Measures to figure out how to make that work on a fast track so he opens up a second site um we are still facing declining enrollment it's not working in our favor and then we've we we are brought what is The Unthinkable by then superintendent l b which who was faced with a very tough decision where where do we go how do we deal with with these with these very hard Economic Times and the libraries and we got we we and l so people had a right to be
132upset but I was called and and I take it as a board member I accepted it that they had a right to rip us uh because we acted upon the libraries but what are we going to do go against the superintendent or uh not and so it was a tough decision we did it because we needed a save and we are then faced with the consolidation of the fish of the Renaissance schools in Fisher in Matson and for that we are also um faced an onslaught of anger rightly so people have a right to be upset but to say that Alan Rock has not been moving in the right direction is ill informed people who have not been around or haven't been paying attention to the very difficult decisions we've been faced as a community
133over and over again why because back in the 90s we had nearly 20,000 students we were the largest K through 8 school district in Northern California that was our distinction that's a way in which people introduced themselves who were in the board at that time we've gone down to 7,000 students we can no longer support this Behemoth of a district without the right number of students we were inundated and we were attacked by Charter Schools it was a consolid concerted effort in to a certain extent played in part by the board at the time that wound up giving away some of the sites for the Miller site uh they handed over um uh well Pala as I mentioned uh yeah to Kip and so all of these things have been taking place it's not as
134if the district hasn't been responding we could have been a lot more um if we had been all about dollars and cents if we hadn't been facing an onslaught of chargers I'm gonna give you some inside baseball this is a very tough decision we're making and you guys should be well informed one of the things that we had to deal with is how do we keep as many sites as we can some of you see like you held off too long we were facing on 14 charter schools within our district boundaries if we would have taken action on any of those sites to save money Guess Who would have had first dips on the sites Charters and we would have had an our our essentially our competition right in our backyard sucking more blood out
135of alen rock these are the realities that we have faced as a board and those folks who say you've been kicking the can down the road you're entitled to your opinion but you don't have all the facts you should inform yourself of what this district has been facing 14 charter schools within our boundaries we've had one nonprofit that has stood up strong and that's almost made for the rest of them like to play ball with these charter schools because they're nonprofits they go and they hang out at the same fundraisers the someo folks are the ones who came up started yelling screaming against the charters when there were some of us on the board who were doing the same thing and pushing back the change of narrative of that charger is going to save everything
136when in fact they haven't when we've gone to the County Board of Education we were there with the limited number of us pleading with them telling them to please not renew two failing charter schools their own staff told them do not renew them in their data they found out they were failing and they go ahead and they renew them against our against our our our against their own staff's recommendation against a pleading of the them I think it was board president at the time or a member of the board either way and then the superintendent and other folks who who stood up and they disregarded us we've been given this by folks who are outside of our district who popped on us these responsibilities without giving us the resources to deal with the consequences and
137so I just want to I know that a lot of folks are here passionate upset you're right you have every right to do so I just want to make sure that we're all educated about the history of what this district has been through and we've been used in a labor experiment by folks from Sacramento by very Filthy Rich millionaires who see us as let's play around with these folks and use them as their as as an experiment to see if we can figure things out oh it's a just a bunch of working class predominantly like inos and Asians and you know who cares that's the reality we're facing as a board having to deal with powers that are beyond your comprehension and the amount of wealth that they have to mess with us and so
138those are the things that we've been dealing with so in terms of Mis management I will I stand by the the the expenditure that we've made to continue to support our students in Alam Rock by providing music Visual and Performing Arts by providing uh Sports when other districts other Public School District have chosen to go away and shut that down because they were looking at the dollars and cents they were looking at how to avert these issues that we're dealing with we've chosen to continue to invest in our kids and continue to provide them the quality and dignified education that they rightfully deserve and if I had to make that decision I'll do it again continue to spend on our kids and give them the resources that other kids get from their parents when they
139get sent to private programs that we don't have the option for our that our parents don't have the option to provide their kids here we are their we are their option this is also and the fact that we are saturated by Charter Schools also takes us into the overe expenditures that have been identified through this budgetary process about special education surprise surprise when everybody when we have the largest number of charter schools they wind up distilling special education into the local school district they have that option of counseling out kids and sending them sending the most expensive kids to us saying here you go and folks rightly so they come over and they get the quality and dignified education that their children deserve so we should not be surprised that we have higher numbers of
140special education because we are they are distilling special ed kits into alrock it's by program so they can go ahead and profit at our expense this is not right but it a it is something that's been handed to us how how do we deal with it I think that there needs to be a call I'm making this call to action I had opportunity to meet up with the folks from SOS Mayfair uh who have are are are in agreen that um that there is a special situation there's a unique situation Alam Rock faces we are the poorest district and the most richest area in the country and those special and unique circumstances need to be met with special and unique answers from the state so I am asking us to begin a pro a Lobby
141day for Alam rock where we go we move forward and our community goes out and lays out the unique circumstances that we face in Alam rock that a cookie cutter a a one- siiz fits all does not apply to Alam Rock our folks in the north have twice the amount of wealth than Alam rock as soon as you cross the boundaries automatically the average household jumps up by twice to the folks to the south in the same situation so these are the circumstances we're facing this plan is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination it is a plan and it seeks to provide options for folks in different areas I'm highly concerned and and uh I'm highly concerned about the the issues with regard to the moving us to TK to5 but this is
142a model I get it everything has to be pre-planned and and I I am concerned that uh some of our opponent no no our competition our competition right there in the local area will wind up taking advantage of of the kids that will wind up going uh to them instead of Okala right there in the hubard neighborhood um I'm appreciative of the fact that hubard is being saved um and even with my prior comments I'm still supportive because I don't think any plan is perfect but I am I'm I'm asking us to look at that and with the you know really focus on th those families and ensure that we don't have a mass Exodus and that if something does look like it's not going our way we need to Pivot immediately because uh by
143sitting there and then waiting for things to happen we will wind up getting our lunch taken completely by the by our opponents who are who who have the luxury and the ability to Pivot very very quickly they have a lot more flexibility in what they do and so uh with that being said I'm asking that that be something that we're we're observing I know that it's it's it's a model everything's already spoken for and done for um and but it is a concern and so with that I'm asking that we we want uh we we look at that um it yeah what else can be said this is a uh um I I appreciate your ability to look at the the community's needs to look at the concerns from our colleagues and uh come up
144with the plan that seeks to leave uh presence of alam Rock in every quadrant that's something that I've been calling for from the beginning that I would not be supportive of any plan that seeks to leave a a quadrant of Al of alumrock without access to a school site um I have shared my concerns with the folks at fer when I did meet with them that in one way shape or form I do believe that the site needs to be retained um this the library uh the investment that alrock school district made in that land the the land that Hillview uh was not just didn't come out of thin air that was an investment by Alam Rock and I believe that needs to be maintained in Alam Rock's uh control because I can see now
145some of our competitors jumping in and saying give us that so we can have a full built-out Library that's funded by the city right with right next to them um and so with that I'll I'll I'll reserve my comments for later if there's any okay thank you f first of all you know I want to thank all alen rockers tonight when you uh advocated for your schools at you know I I'm at least if there's a silver lining I'm very very touched that you you guys heeded the ask to accentuate the positives of your schools and not to tear tear any you know tear down an Alam rock your fellow Alam Rock School uh you know all alen rock schools are good schools uh and that you know whether you live on capital and mcke
146or story and King uh or I should say Jackson and mcke story and King and capital and Okala you know you advocated for your schools and you know what everything you got and you focused on what was good about your schools and in and you know did not attack your fellow Alam rockers so I thank you all for that uh I want to say you know address the issue uh libraries and parks are Force multipliers for Education that's why that was one of the issues that I took into consideration uh I you know uh I'm a graduate of alam Rock I I understand the value of having an having a library nearby I went to Pal middle school and the old Alam Rock library which is now the Roberto crw library was within walking distance
147it was a great resource for for myself and many of my classmates I went to Independence High School and as you know there's the all Educational Park Branch Library there and over felt Gardens um you know those City amenities provided learning opportunities you know added on to the opportunities available uh for kids in the area so that was you know that was part you know one of the reasons why you know Pro protecting sites adjacent to parks and libraries what was a huge concern of mine uh I also want to address the issue you know somebody brought up you know cancelling Workforce housing uh at the present time Workforce housing is perhaps one of the clearest ways that this District can begin to turn the fiscal tide uh as uh Mr Barbara said what is
148it land rich and cash poor and funding from you know from you know hopefully when completed work force housing would enable the district to have at least some of the unrestricted Revenue to invest in our kids to invest in our teachers invest in our schools again so I do ask that you know let's you know let's not be shortsighted um you know again I I want to say I want to thank superintendent Serta in the cabinet and you know trusty Chavez you know for working on you know at the end of the day every every section of district has a school uh no no proposal is perfect I get that this is this is a moment of great you know and sense great anguish and great sadness and you know I I stated for very
149Cur it's a Schoolboard members nightmare no one wants to you know uh I I never thought you know I want I never thought I'd be in this situation right you know if the state Cola was at 5 and a qu% as was promised in June of 2023 we would not be in this situation but you know this you know I'm H first of all you know superintendent certain mention Transportation that's why you know that was part of the consideration when we collaborate collaborated on this plan right to ensure you know that while we maintain schools in all sections of the district you know there was at least a feasible way to address the concerns that you all brought which was uh the distance between schools um you know uh I want in this hangs on
150to as again as many amenities as possible even though the initial upfront Savings in the first year is not as great as the initial administration's proposal it does it does match that over a two-year period so we you know you know we have to take into account there's a human cost there's an educational cost to this and if we're able to as I said make savings while miate softening the blow for our kids and families you know let's try to do that and I think it's evidenced by the fact that it is one you know it may be cold comfort but it's one net less School closure it means the preservation of another you know School Community within the district uh you know I you know again feel free to be angry at me angry
151at this B angry at the administration I mean it is your right to do so and you know in in this this moment but I I hope that you know this plan I think leaves uh you know at the very least save saves saves the furniture saves Grandma's silver so that the district can continue to use it for our kids you you know so with with that you know again uh I you know I thank you for your patience I thank you know thank the board my colleagues for their consideration I thank the administration for you know buckling down and working to get to a solution you know though not perfect uh does it you know does address as the needs of as many as possible and I want to make one last question you
152know statement and it is uh you know I've also heard concerns about the redesign to K5 and I think part of it is uh our middle schools are good schools as well and I look you one of things I look forward to to working with along with my colleagues with the superintendent Serta in his cabinet is what can we do to improve the educational offerings at this District you know obvious ly you know there's always room for improvement and I hope that you know in in time you know once we get past this we start working on change you know positive changes to our curriculum so that our parents not only want to go to our elementary schools but also our middle schools so with that you know I'll end my comments at this time
153thank you thank you trusty Flor thanks I have a question and then I have my comments um uh well first actually I want to just um piggy back off of Vice President Kinto a little bit um you and I joined the board in 20 end of 2012 beginning of 2013 I was right on the heels of you and I was on the board for two years and in 2013 and 2014 I went back and um we had to we had to um open up an ace Charter School behind Cesar Chavez open up the DCP Charter School at the Okala campus the alpha saloner and this board at the time voted against rocket ship fza only to go to the County Office of Ed and have them approve it so in the span of two years
154exactly 10 years ago four Charter Schools um opened and then you can if you look at the declining enrollment at that same time um and that's just my that's just my little two-year bubble experience um and so I just think all the our affordable housing crisis are um our birth rates declining most likely because of the affordable housing crisis um our overcrowding crisis um Charter Schools it's all of these all of these factors have us in this um horrendous um situation um so I I do want to um double down on I think the management practices and the fiscal management um basically has the the positive practices have kept this place going um because of all of these forces that have have um challenged this District um I do have one more clarifying question on
155the proposal just again this is more for clarity I'm seeing the par educ Ator Im so immediate savings slide eight um 8.4 million there's two lines on par Educators which total TK par Educators campus par Educators a total of $561,000 in savings can you just clarify for me because I feel like we've been trying to hire par Educators to offset other more expensive kind of like contract and vendor costs is is um talk to me a little bit more about these well that's good assistant superintendent of business uh Mr s to speak on that um we are very short staffed in special education par Educators they are not a part of this analysis okay yeah so this is only the TK Kinder par Educators that if we eliminate the TK Kinder class then we would
156not need the TK Kinder par educator so this would be like the the Chavez uh we're but we're moving it to L uh to San Antonio right so so um so those you know this is my issue of just the overall slicing already a very very thinly staff district office um so those are concerning um as well as one of our my hopes that again I'll just you know recognize I'm a lame duck trustee this is my last board meeting um and I'm trying to like for the future my hopes and dreams for this place um is that we continue to um prioritize um all day Kinder um program so that we can be competitive with our comp competition and I thought par Educators were very very key to making that um potentially work um
157at the bargaining table so I just want us to be really mindful of the things that we're giving up and impacts um that they can have um so thank you for that um I just really W to again be focused on having history really inform how we move forward and I I appreciate um vice president Kimo's um uh his institutional knowledge and sharing that context I do appreciate um really the hard work um that truste kicked off to do things that um you know the rest of us weren't getting into the weeds like like you did and so um you know it's we've said it multiple times this was going to be horrendous no matter what um and so your due diligence um and looking at the numbers um is appreciative I'm appreciative of that
158um I am really concerned though that we don't have new partial tax money coming in our our you know localities near us were successful in November and we didn't put one on the ballot so I would hope that this District um plans and prepares and thinks about the next ballot we've got to be bringing in Revenue let the voters decide and after making hard decisions like this um I'm hoping if even the taxpayers association could come out give us Kudos my God like let's not forget that moment here um so I I really really hope that we go to the voters and ask for um potential Revenue I'm thrilled that we're looking at um you're looking at State funding reform in the future because this Ada model is is killing us and your your um
159remarks um and about our unique situation um they should they should ring true to folks but this is truly a a Statewide um issue for all the Alum rocks in Southern California and and um in rural California to the north um I think there also has to be other massive systemic changes like when you consolidate a school this large into less schools you start need to thinking about consolidating districts and that's like another you know crazy blow but um we need to get smarter because this district office again I want to go back to how thin it is um I was reading in the csba newsletter that came out about there's new legislation because there's so many requirements on districts now to put you know this report forward and this dashboard and this lcap and
160it's like now Doos are just in this like reporting cycle versus what intervention can we put in the classroom what's curriculum Focus what's our differential response you know um approach so I really hope that we can keep that this uh board also keeps track of sort of that legislation that can um minimize districts being at the the Hest of every you know metric like like I still at two years later I'm like which metric should we be looking at there's so many darn things I was like okay it's chronic cism for me and but there's just so many things and so I hope again the state reform model also focuses on what can we do for our classrooms versus just accountability um you know so many different ways um and I think the most important
161thing that I would like for us um you know besides actually two more things sorry Linda um I want to say to my curatin friends right my curan moms who it's terribly s um to Mr Bara right who lives in the Castell neighborhood and he told me last Wednesday about all of his you know children and grandchildren that went to Cel my e for e for e for e for for for spe e for spe e for e spe e spe what for p spe e spe for e for e e spe e for e for e for e for right e spe for e e with for for ch for for spe for for in board President Chavez vice president Cano members of the board and members of the community um I love how
162the room empties out before my presentations I am always grateful for that um this is the addendum to the fiscal stabilization plan that was presented on September 26th the agenda is um for me to go over the unrestricted General funds the multi-year projections at budget adoption then I will compare that to the unrestricted general fund multi-year projections at first interim it is just a draft at this point in time I will be uh going over the first interim report on the December 19th board meeting I'll be going over what's changed since budget development a summary of the savings and changes since budget development the School site savings some Revenue considerations that are not included in the first interim multi-year report some expenditure considerations that are not included in the first interim multi-year projections and then
163some other considerations this slide um you you all have seen several times this is the unrestricted general fund uh from budget development so this was based on board action on May 21st so I just want to highlight a few things so so this was projected to have a beginning fund balance of the 47.6 million almost 47.7 we were projected to deficit spend this fiscal year of 19.5 million uh with the1 million of projected school closures and $1.8 million of district office staffing Cuts in the fiscal 2025 26 school year we were projected to deficit spend of the 10.8 million and then in 2627 down to 8.3 which includes some certificated Staffing reductions in the third year out uh please take a look at that ending fund balance of $8.9 million this was approved by scoy
164this does meet our three-year projections um and I will now show you the Improvement uh in our draft first interim report so we are starting the beginning fund balance with $50.7 million we had the $3 million of savings from the last fiscal year when I presented un audited actuals um we were able to have some savings this year so we are deficit spending of 17.8 million and no longer than 19.5 next year with the current projections based on the the um Consolidated plan that was just approved we are deficit spending next year of $9.2 million and then in the 2026 27 school year of $7.8 million so that we end our fund ending fund balance of $15.8 million um I do need to ask trustee fam uh with his amendments I think there's a couple
165of fiscal impacts that I might need to add back um most notably the separate Vietnamese Community liaison is is that correct trustee fam uh I think so okay and and then I just want to make sure are there any other fiscal impacts to with your amendments not no not that I can see based upon you know the wording of the Amendments perfect I didn't think so as well uh the cost that I would need to add back in is approximately $71,000 for the additional Community liaison starting next year uh so that would be $14 $2,000 Less in the ending fund balance at the end of the three years so $15.8 million minus $142,000 still it is a far better position than we were in at budget development what's changed since budget development enrollment uh Alam
166Rock's enrollment for this fiscal year is a little bit better than projected at budget development the preliminary October SE beds enrollment is 7,226 versus 7,093 at budget development the 2024 updated demographics report includes the updated projections which increases the projections for next year and the year after the increased enrollment and Ada the average daily attendance has been Incorporated in the first interim lcff Revenue calculations however to account for the potential decrease in enrollment due to school closures and consolidations enrollment was decreased by 300 in fiscal 2025 26 and fiscal year 2026 27 overall for the three-year projections the ending fund balance has increased by $6.8 million since budget development uh the beginning fund balance increased $3 million to 50 million from 47 million due to savings from the 2324 for school year for fiscal 20242
167there is a $1.7 million savings due to increased indirect cost out of the unrestricted general fund to the to the restricted general fund to account for the 26 million in carryover funds for 2025 26 and 2026 27 there is a savings of 1.6 million and $478,000 respectively due to the increase lcff revenue from The increased enrollment and funded Ada the savings for the school closures is less than what was originally projected due to the following reasons and you'll see this on the the next couple of slides counselors were counted as a reduction but should not have been since we are reducing them due to attrition four counselor positions were reduced since budget development this is a reduction in savings of 600 $6,000 for school closures the $66,000 is included it's just that it's included this
168year and we've already accounted for it so I can't double count it as part of next year's school closures okay so I just want to make that clear utility savings were reduced to 80% per consultation with our scoy assigned fiscal expert this is a reduction in savings of $331,000 in fiscal year 2025 26 and $28,000 in fiscal year 2026 27 for the utante consolidations here is a summary of the savings and changes since budget development so the closure consolidation of schools comes to7 million 885,000 the consolidation of utante 1 and two at the fiser site in the 2026 27 school year is $ 1,66 th000 the four counselor positions that were not filled uh amount to the $66,000 and that's a saving starting this year so if you take a look at the subtotal the
169subtotal of the closure or consolidation of schools for next fiscal year is almost 8.5 million and the year after with the consolidation of the otanes at the Fisher site come to $ 9.5 million the reduction of the $350,000 was due to the the 80% reduction of utilities right so we were at $9.8 million okay uh we have the same district office staffing reductions assumptions of $1.78 million uh we have special education Staffing reductions of 1.8 almost $1.9 million and certificated Staffing reductions of $1.5 million again that's due to declining enrollment and class size efficiency uh superintendent Sera already went over this in his slide so I'll go over it quickly so here's the um the job titles of the savings that we would have from the school site closures the principes and assistant principals the
170tkk par Educators the health assistance Community Liaisons and custodians the school admin assistants school office assistants the campus par Educators and the 80% Savings of utilities for a grand total of $7.88 five million here are some Revenue considerations that are not included in the first interim multi-year projections the repurposing of excess facilities to generate facilities use or leasing Revenue the possible sale or land swap of excess facilities the district would like to hire a real estate consultant to assist us in evalu ating various real estate considerations and revenue options it takes three or more years to realize revenue from leasing a site or land swap options here are some expenditure considerations that are not included in first interim all of the first bullet is step and column increases for employees are included in the projections
171however there are no raises or off salary increases in the multi-year projections since negotiations are not settled moving expenditures and other costs due to school closures are not accounted for in the multi-year projections since they are not Quantified yet other considerations um all of you know we are going to start a a comprehensive special education study uh we will also continue to evaluate each position as vacancies arise starting next year and the year after the district may have additional certificated Staffing reductions due to class loading efficiencies we are in uncharted waters uh this was a graphic from our fiscal expert Don ziming okay we are in uncharted waters because we are I am told the first district to close this many school sites so I do commend the board for making the very difficult decisions
172these are some potential surprises um the cola may change the current Cola projections are for next year 2.93% the year after 3.08% and for fiscal 2728 3.3% um we all know a reduction in Cola would would hurt us in our Revenue projections uh we also don't know the changes to our average daily attendance due to the closures we also need to keep in mind that the special education the maintenance of effort considerations um the maintenance of effort requirement is for us to spend in local and State dollars the same amount in the current year as we did in the previous year so this is something that we need to keep an eye on uh we do not have Ane issue this year if uh I foresee Ane issue next year I will bring it to
173the board's attention with some possible solutions I will be working closely with Hanover who is doing our special education study and with skoy to keep an eye on the special education maintenance of effort and when fmap presented their report on November 14th they voiced some concerns with liability exposure due to pending litigation okay so we just need to keep all of these points in mind with that I hope that you approve the fiscal stabilization plan which is due to scoy by December 16th and I will take any questions that you have um it's not directly related to the plan but um I wanted I wanted to make sure that we're in constant communication with the the solar folks and that they are they're immediately notified about the decisions that way they can in Earnest move
174forward to start realizing some of those savings we were waiting for your decision tonight so I'm sure that Mark frus and I will be on it tomorrow thank you any other trustee comment TR okay um I just uh going back to uh the the um slide before the uncharted waters picture um you mentioned that conducting a special education study is that the one that um trustee Andre Flores Shelton um requested or brought up at the last board meeting part of it no this is uh this is not that request this is the study that uh the board approved um actually skoy uh our Don I believe Zimmerman our fiscal expert recommended that we can conduct a special education study to identify root causes for overidentification of special education students and we've contracted with Hanover who
175will be conducting that study okay thank you and I do see Mr um simmering hands up so I don't know if it's him or if he wants to share anything oh Mr zimy yeah he's already talking per minuted okay uh please put him on Mr Z he's on but he's not talking no I've been talking to no but they're talking about Mr Z no he's un muted talking permitted talking per oh that's right he has to call her she's not talking I know like he would need to call us let's see can you speak didn't we tell him 10 minutes about two hours ago sorry sounds no he can't we can't hear him actually if you call him and then just put yourself on speaker then if his isn't working then try it through his
176he says he's fine no need to talk okay he says he's okay yeah he says he's fine no need to talk okay I'm G I mean uh any more questions for miss seeing n you want uh you want to do public comment this is just a presentation we don't usually do public comment but so no no no so means we don't usually take public comment on but okay let's let's do this let's take your public comment there you go we'll even be generous we'll give you a minute and a half I'll um in the initial presentation of merging the adantes it indicated that there' be about $1.2 million savings yet in this report for future years it only shows $1 million so there is a discrepancy on what's been presented publicly versus what's financially been
177shared so there is a discrepancy that should be um clarified why why that is uh the other thing is in your presentation of redistrict scene it's showing how the schools are going to be there in the future the atlantas are not there so unless they're going to disappear next year that map should be corrected to show that those schools are part of the school district serving the K through whatever you'll need you see they're missing okay okay thank you for pointing that out and just you know from a statement perspective clearly the reason that the atlantas are being closed is because you want to save 1.3 million is not sure if you're saving 1.3 or 1.0 it' be great for clarity purposes to do it to to share it with the public thank you for
178your question um the original $ 1.2 million in savings included a counselor and 100% of the utilities so again I backed out the counselors which come to about $66,000 for all the counselors for the sites that were closed or Consolidated and the utilities we reduce down to 80% from 100% so that drops the $1.2 million in savings to a million dollar but the counselor savings are there we're just realizing them this year and not as part of the savings for next year oh and then I also want to keep in mind that these are all just estimates we don't have specific people identified right so once we go through the process of figuring out which principles and assistant principles and health assistants and all of that um then we can get to exact numbers so
179again please bear with us this has to be averages or um you know based on uh what I try to do is kind of go on the lower end because as we know it is the the less senior people who get bumped or reduction in force um so these are all just estimates right now these numbers will change um but hopefully we will get approximately where we are with the estimates uh uh just um superintendent um there's the 80% is to ensure that we have electricity water to keep things going so that we maintain the sights and yes uh yes that is correct alarm systems making sure yeah that's one of the concerns uh in San Jose we have a distinction of having this horrible reputation that um things light up when people want to
180do something else with the land and so I think it's important to make sure that we have uh the alarm system security to ensure that uh our sites are well protected and that nobody takes advantage of the fact that there might be less presence I'm sure that staff's still going to be around and maintaining the sight correct that that is correct yes all right thank you thank you TR has had her hand up uh tra you want to talk did you have your hand Yeah question I didn't see her hand yes I I just want to um clarify now we're not supposed to respond to um the audience but just want to make sure that the the maps are attached to this is that true Teresa and then we're going to update that tocl adante
181for the following year I apologize can you repeat your question uh the maps the boundaries is that attached to this one I know we're not supposed to respond to the audience but I just want to make sure that we reflect the right ones that will include adante for the following year yes that that is correct the it's not attached to this presentation it was attached to the resolution that was approved sorry I can't hear you can you speak a little louder because she can't can you hear me now yes so the boundaries is not attached to this presentation it was included in the resolution and the recommendation for the school closures and so in Adelante one and two the reason they're not showing up there is because they're not boundary Schools they're choice schools than
182schools of choice I'm sorry okay so we're GNA call for the vote um trusty loera how do you vote hi uh truste Andrea Flor Shelton how do you vote Yes uh vice president GTO how do you vote I trustee minf how do you vote I and myself I it's 5 motion passes unan ious and so it is now 9:45 and I'm going to adjourn this meeting all right thank you