Regular Board Meeting

001than you Hi man the spe e gra right she clearly said just okay I'm G to just shoot see time I got yeah so h he care think better than you e you know for other than that it's took so is Andrea superintendent I know we're not starting on time but well okay thank you for your patience we're just waiting on one board member and then we'll start the meeting thank you for your patience all right all right okay so I'm gonna call this meeting to order um it's 5:38 um Miss marel can you please do roll call today is a regular board meeting of November 14 2024 at 5:30 pm hello Miss marel can you hear me Tristy chz you can't hear me can you hear me trusty Chavez just go in there sorry

002a little bit of technical difficulties here today's today's the regular board meeting of November 14 2024 at 5:30 p.m. members of the board in attendance president Linda Chavez present vice president Andres quo present clerk MF present member cordin alera present member Andrea Flor Shelton oh she's running late members of administration superintendent hermana presid okay so could you all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh let the record reflect um my uh trustee Sheldon is in the room I'm sorry Shon okay uh so uh moving on to item 103 welcome and explanation to audience any person may address the board on any item on

003the meeting agenda persons who wish to speak on the item on the agenda will have an opportunity to do so when the agenda item is introduced and presented during this meeting there is a limit of so right now since we have so many speakers here today uh it's up to the board if we can allow 20 speakers for one minute or 10 speakers for two minutes so I think it's better that we allow uh one minute for 20 speakers um and if there is all on one side I will give an opportunity if somebody has a comment for the other s so we can hear from both sides um and they will also be giving uh given one minute as well so the board has the right to limit the total public comment on any

004agenda item to no more than 20 minutes persons who wish to speak to the board about any matter within the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda will have an opportunity to speak during item 201 on this agenda as stated below and be before we move on to 102 Mr um trii Mr Carlos trii can you please come up and we we have um a few words he wants to say about um an alumni of alam rock thank you Madame President good afternoon members of the public members of the board I'm going to read um in Spanish um something that trust um president Linda Chavez asked me to read you want me to read in Spanish correct president please yes it's the excuse me after English and if you could do English too

005oh both okay thank you let us take a moment of silence to honor The Life and Legacy of Mr Bill Nicolosi a dedicated educator and Visionary who who brought the joy of music and the Performing Arts to countless students in Alam Rock Mr Nicolosi's impact extends far beyond the classroom as the founder of our district jazz band in 1973 he inspired generations of students and teachers including three of my students creating a tradition of excellence and artistic expression that remains a Cornerstone of our community his contributions will continue to resonate through the lives he touched and the vibrant Arts culture he helped build I will read this in Spanish now in graas Carlos um so we will be closing out um the meeting in honor of Mr Nicolosi who was with us for over 50

006years so moving on to the discussion and or modification of the agenda the board may change the order of business including but not limited to an announcement that an agenda item will be considered out of order that consideration of an item has been withdrawn postponed rescheduled or removed from the consent calendar for separate discussion and possible action uh Trust corera thank you president Chavis um I would like to move 701 and 901 before close session I know we have a lot of families teachers uh staff here and I know that there's young children so I'd like to honor their time all so I'm going to ask the public to please refrain from um clapping shouting yelling arguing because we have uh business to take care of and because we have to be respectful to everybody

007thank you so we have a first and a second uh do we have any uh go ahead I would ask that we hear first okay should be okay is that okay with your second we're going to hear 901 first did you hear what he just said yeah okay is that okay the the maker of the motion said 701 I don't know does the maker does a make or I'm I'm okay with that Amendment it should be quick okay and so is that okay okay so we have a motion uh all in favor so it's unanimous so we will take before and 701 before 701 okay before item two I moved close session after Okay so we're trying to figure out right now when we should move it uh if we want 70 excuse me 901

008before 2011 or before what was the other one so motion was to move it before close session after 2011 that's what we just voted on so your motion was to what so my motion was to move uh 901 uhhuh and 701 right before close session right before 301 okay so that's the order that we're going to be hearing them we're going to hear it's going to be a little bit out of order for those who are following the agenda um it's going to be 01 before 701 and 701 before 301 in that order thank you okay so uh let's go ahead and take um two go to 2011 public members who wish to address the board on matters matters not on the agenda request to address the board provides members of the public an opportunity

009to speak about any matter under the jurisdiction of the district but not on this agenda if the subject subject you wish to discuss is already on this agenda please provide your comment when that item is called during the meeting those who wish to speak on a a within the jurisdiction of the brown act prevents the board from discussing any item not on this published agenda but the board May refer to staff or follow up any formal written requests that are brought before the board at this time there is a one minute time limit for each speaker the board has the right to limit the total public time on any agenda item to more no more than 20 minutes and are we keeping a timer uh okay and I'm as soon as the 20 minutes are

010over can you please let uh me know and the board no and this is not about school closures thank you good evening as an African-American employee and constituent I compelled to speak about race relations at this critical moment in our nation's history today is Ruby Bridges walk to Freedom day and I stand proudly for the next generation of rubies the student voice has to be magnified as we navigate this point in our District's trajectory please do not silence voices speaking on behalf of our students I have been a proponent of culturally responsive teaching for most of my career and have witness its positive impact on all students in 2019 the 1619 Club was established at Joseph George middle and it is open to students of any race interested in social justice work today there are

011over 20 students of all Races who stood together in unity to celebrate Ruby Bridges day it's my hope that arusd remains Resolute in its commitment to black students and employees going forward it's my hope that racial Justice will be at the Forefront of decisions made and that ethnic studies Community Schools and arts education will be Central in this District thank you for listening hello my name is Adrienne Vain and I'm a teacher at Joseph George middle school I know my school's on the list and that's not what this is about what this is about is I my AC unit hasn't been working since October 1st our uh PA system hasn't been working at our school all year long and I feel like oh we're just going to close the school so why do we care

012about our students this also happened at Lindale lindell's PA system isn't working and there was a school shooter threat earlier this week and they didn't have an opportunity to get to each classroom in a timely manner that's not okay just because we're closing schools doesn't mean we ignore the schools that we have right now to me that's showing you showing us that these kids don't matter I I challenge you to come to a middle school classroom six period thank you any other speakers hello my name is Emi I am a former student of both uh the Lindell school and of rocket ship so I believe I do have a place to say and experienced both schools uh in regards to well disregarding uh the closure of the school given the time that we are currently

013in the community that these schools are in are one of our most vulnerable communities especially coming this new year and I hope that the board takes that into accountability when considering any decisions they are going to be making moving forward um I hope and I trust that you will be taking into account not only the people of color that attend these schools but as well as all of our students with disabilities that are one of our most vulnerable communities that are that attend these schools and are integral to our community so thank you give me a second let me make sure that I announce this properly um this is for public comment items not involving School closure School closure is going to be heard under item 7 point this is involving items that are not

014for school closures any other items within our jurisdiction uh items involving School closure will be heard in item 7.02 shortly uh so any anybody uh who has public comment please come on up on an item not involving School closure anything within the jurisdiction of alrock feel like Bob Barker up in here so I wanted to say I a proud employee of alam Rock Union School District guys are all doing the Lord's work out here with trying to move us forward this very very challenging time I think that while a lot of these decisions are being made we're not thinking about the people really kind of behind uh working behind the scenes I just want to really Center everyone here I'm to do this really hard project I want to talk about I just want to

015really shout out lot all the teachers who are having to deal with extreme stress right now as well as a lot of the administrators who dealing with a lot of stress right now I want to say that I really want to shout out specifically uh the principal here Russo mckinty like what principal would let people stay here until 9:00 unpaid like this awesome so thank you Miss Coy and I know it's a hard time just want to make sure the board understands what she's done for the alen Brock Community what she's done for the uh rusa makad community and while we're looking at where people's jobs might going I hope did will see what she's done and realize that I I'm just going to finish this thought really quickly just say oh yeah thank you

016um good afternoon I just want to also uh Echo uh what I saw at George today with all the students really learning about what Justice in school also desegregation means and it was beautiful to see you know a group of 20 students really talking to their peers about uh what it means to be United as a community and seen them become leaders so I want to give a lot of props to the teachers and the staff who organized that um the second thing that I just want to like make sure that you're aware and you'll receive an email on this uh we're opening up uh our the second uh Family Resource Center at hubber ele uh Hub hubber middle school and we just one publicly open the invitation to you all to come and be

017part of that opening on November 22nd at 3 p.m. so we look forward to seeing you're obviously more than welcome to come and I'll follow up with an email so that's a great opportunity for us to continue to figure out what are the resources our students need and work together to get those resources for them thank you so the Wii is first five Alam school district and S Bayer all right at this at this point we're going to go ahead and move the uh we're gonna move on with item number 9.01 uh as the agenda was amended this approve the item is approve resolution number 2324 sl25 intention to solicit bids to refurbish repurpose and Lease s 600 stclair Drive San Jose California formerly known as Maxa I'll turn this over back to the board

018president just open up item 9.01 vice president you want me to introduce it so I can have or you want public comments first uh yeah at this point if there's any public comment related to item 9.01 please come on up this is involving the resolution uh 23-24 sl25 and ition is solicit bids to refurbish repurpose and least 600 Sinclair Drive San Jose California formerly know as Maxa there's no public comment that at this point I'll turn it over to the uh superintendent who will introduce the item uh thank you vice president uh kto uh I'm GNA call on uh interm Chief uh bonds uh Mark frees who will be introducing this item and give you a little bit more context uh so go ahead uh Mr this thank you superintendent Serta board members um here

019tonight this evening this resolution is to provide an opportunity for the uh site 600 Sinclair Drive formerly known as the moxa center um several months ago the trustees approved a committee task force uh to look into the possibility of repurposing and refurbishing the uh the moxas former moxa Center um and to see what kind of um opportunities are out there from nonprofits and other organizations to utilize this facility um this task force had a a meeting on October 28th and provided a couple of um directives from that um the committee had made the motion and uh to uh set one establish a Time deadline for the submittal of proposals to be received by the the district on November 25th and those proposals would then go be forwarded to the committee meeting scheduled on December 2nd

020the second item is that those proposals would come to the uh committee uh to be reviewed so we looked into um following the guidelines and in order to follow the educational code because the moxa center is a school property um our legal council uh indicated that a resolution was necessary in order for the board to provide the Authority for the committee to be able to review and um evaluate the proposals that would have been submitted um so that's what in essence this task force uh would be charged with and with that I can answer any questions that you may have I I I needed to um open up the 701 hearing so I don't even know what time it is right now can you tell okay so all right sorry right now I'm um under

021the weather got stomach blue so I'm trying to follow as good as I can thanks so go ahead uh Bina thank you for uh bringing um or explaining um and being one of the committee chairs with uh trustee or vice president Kinto um and I know that we had this conversation already uh with u Mr s that this week but I wanted to be public um and that I think think there was a miscommunication and uh you know vice president kto can help clear that up um in that we would never ask uh you know uh anybody to do anything illegal and um I I I read this board book and when I was reading this I was like wow this is very formal and I don't think we're at this point um and I

022think when we discussed as a committee uh we wanted to make sure that those that had expressed interest in a refurbishing ing this site which was once known as Maxa that we went back and we talked to them nothing formal but more uh informal um and just to get information not necessarily a request for proposal because at this time as a board we haven't even determined if we're going to keep that site open um I know we have a deadline coming up that we had agreed on and at that point we're going to determine as a board if we're going to demolish or not um so I don't think we're at a point where you know we um can do this formal RFP and if we were I think the timing is very rushed I

023don't think it's fair for our partners to get all this information that we're asking for and such little time um it almost feels like a setup like you know there's just there's so much um and so if we did go with the RFP I would like to give them more time if this is something that the board agrees on um I think the deadlines that we have are very tight so what do you okay uh vice president kto and then I'll ask my question so um I I do not agree with I don't agree with moving forward with this uh resolution uh due to the fact that for the first of all it uh it has US declared this property Surplus that was not the intention of the committee never at any time did we

024want to declare the property Surplus um more than anything the Cent that I got from the committee from the task force was that we wanted a joint Partnership if we were to declare this property Surplus all of a sudden it triggers everything that's in the head code and we'd have to offer it up to everybody in the nailor ACT which includes every state agency general service Administration that's something that I'm I haven't heard from the committee I haven't heard from the board a desire to move in that direction and so it's for that purpose that I think that I would suggest I'm gon to make a motion whenever you'll you'll accept it that we uh table this resolution we uh direct staff to come back with a request for information uh that is lot less

025formal and that is informed by those five questions that we that we uh proposed as a committee that have already been uh that are the work product of the committee uh and so it's it's it would be a lot less formal we would not have to go through and and put ourselves in the danger of being sued if somebody wasn't properly notified uh have a 60-day window where they have to accept or reject uh the the offers that they have right right of person refusal additionally I'm very concerned about the $110,000 cashier check uh uh item that's placed on here I think it would limit the interest of individuals who might think that they don't have an opportunity to engage um and additionally item 11 is something I'm not comfortable with to place with the

026task force the responsibility of opening up bids some a very formal process is something I'm not interested in seeing a task force being charged with uh things like uh going out there and determining if somebody's a responsible bid the task force is not equipped or trained to make those assessments and so for that reason I would suggest that staff do that then consult with our general our legal counsel Roo Ruiz uh to ensure that everything that everybody that everything's up to uh you know it's all in accordance to the law in accordance to what we we set forth and so that the motion if you'll accept it second I'll okay I'll accept the motion and the second but first I want to hear from the other two trustees who also want to comment thank you

027uh thank you president and thank you to the task force members as not being a task force member um I appreciate the motion um I wanted to ask if um we need to um because we currently have a a deadline for uh determining um the decision do we also need to incorporate into the motion um moving out the deadline uh I think we set for January so uh the maker of the motion you want to speak uh I think that we can take since it's not agend the deadline itself is not agendized we have this resolution I would suggest that in addition to everything we've said a direct staff to uh never mind that we Weir uh the administration to bring back the deadline and extend it up until March okay yeah and then this

028action would if it passes would supersede that deadline anyways because we're giving new direction to um um extend the process so yeah I I appreciate um the comments that you made around um just the formality of it as well as um the task force itself having UH responsibilities that I um I I don't think are uh for the task force to do so um I appreciate you um looking into us I do appreciate the administration attempting to meet the deadline um because we were in a in a rush and this would be an RFP um would be the proper way to do it it just seems like there's some um nuances that we need to clean up so thank you and I accept the um the date for this TR deman yes uh Madame President

029uh you know just uh to the admin Administration H it's my recollection that this board did ex you know pass a a resolution or give direction to the board in August extending at at the time extending the uh moratorium on the U moxa site for a period of six months and given that it was passed in August my recollection leads me to believe that uh the deadline was in February so so the question to the administration is that the deadline was in February uh why is it why is it being brought forward in November when it could have been brought at a you know at a uh you know at a later date you know at a time where uh the board would have would have had a opportunity to examine this more in depth

030okay and so you want to as uh as one of the co-chairs of the committee uh there was a desire to move forward uh we explained that to staff staff attempted to bring forward a to to look for a solution so thank you Mark uh but I think now you have more clear direction as to what the board's uh desire is and so uh is this is not uh to fall on Mark uh it was uh the desire of the committee to to comply with what we believe that the time was a January uh deadline uh and so I just wanted to make sure that Mark doesn't take the call for or the desire of the committee to meet this this January deadline it was it was a committee wanting to move forward on this

031and make sure that we met the deadline thank you Vice sorry and I just want to add that was the first meeting I attended uh regarding the moxa and so that was the same information that I had so I I worked with bark on this so but now we have clear Direction I appreciate your comments uh vice president kto thank you okay I'm going to add my comments now um everything everybody said was my um thoughts as well and what I did see and I discussed it with uh superintendent Seda that um on the bids the period of shall not exceed 99 years um I don't have any intent of DC to anybody for that amount of time ever especially because if we are going to get into something I feel that we have to

032make sure that everything is put in place and put in place to favor Alam Rock because in the past these contracts have not favored the district and so I would also like to see in there in the future that every five years it's going to be looked at and determined whether they can uh continue to be able to keep up uh not only with the maintenance and it should be their responsibility not uh the responsibility of alen rock to maintain those buildings while they're using them and also to put in that those timelines of five years we revisit it and if we do not see that they're going to be able to make the payments or do good on the the contract every single word of the contract then there should be a clause in

033there that says that it will be uh termina thank you so um I guess president go ahead is is that a motion or is that a directive uh I think we could probably draw it together with legal counsel better uh but um the motion that Mr I got the motion but but this almost sounds like a another motion or directive no um this this is just my opinion okay so that I what I would like to see I guess um I would like to see our legal council look at it thoroughly before anything gets put up in the agenda going forward uh Mr President Chavez what I'll do is based on our conversation what I'll do is I will work with District legal council and draft something that um and a resolution of course it's

034at the will of the board right when you can make changes to it and so I'll work with legal on that bring something back that you can consider as resolution with with some of the recommended uh changes and if the board agrees then uh okay we can always vote on this resolution and vote it down so um right now goe we already provide a pretty clear Direction okay so we'll just move on pardon we're dropping it to move it the P yeah so I'm gonna go ahead and restate my motion and attempt to remember every last word I said um the motion was to essentially scrap this resolution move forward with the request for information which is a lot less formal that give me a second it's been a long dat no we G do

035you do you have further notes I we previously gave you want me to repeat what I wrote based upon and using the five questions or the five criteria that were provided by the task force to move forward uh with the request for information and uh at the end I believe we ask that we extend till March the uh deadline and that that come back so that we can formally take action on it as a board uh and I think I threw in there that I was concerned about the $10,000 but that's obviously my concerns okay so I'm going to ask for an amendment to the motion because truste minf fam did say that it was six months and it should be in February can we move that up to February I think given I think

036March would be just one more month would you be a minable to uh trusty minan well I asked the question and provided a comment I wasn't making the motion to uh to that extent thank you Bill okay so we'll leave it as is just same thing okay all right so now moving on to okay all those in favor of the motion raise your hand okay motion guys okay so moving on motion passes uh by a five zero majority unanimously moving on to 701 this is the public hearing uh for the school closures and school consolidation recommendations from the superintendent uh superintendent s would you like to speak on that please uh yes we're going to have actually we're going to uh uh hold the actual presentation first and and also uh my recommendation so that

037you can hear the recommendation and the process that we took in getting input from the community and our educational Partners before the public comments and so with that what I would like to do is I would like to call um uh Manny Barbara who's the superintendent adviser and also the facilitator of the school consolidation committee to present on the process and then once he's done with uh going over the process with his presentation I will go ahead and move with my presentation and then we can go ahead and uh president Chavis we can then continue with the public hearing thank you very much good evening board President Chavez members of the Board of Trustees and superintendent Serta so I'm going to be speaking to the process that was used and uh those aren't the slides

038that I Daniel that's the wrong presentation I'm just talking about the process not the actual recommendation that's the other one so I'm only going to be discussing the process that we used and how we got to this this point here so thank you so you have those slides yeah than I lifted up that's all right hang on to this there we go thank you that's not it yeah that's not I have a hold on there we go okay so I'm going to be discussing uh sharing with you the process that we use to arrive uh to where we are today so first of all a little bit of History um You Might Recall when uh actually when I was here as an intro we discuss that right now the alrock school district is facing a

039$20 million deficit and we basically have right now enough funds to last us this year and then next year and then the district will go bankrupt and we will not have any funding we have been assigned um a fiscal adviser who's here this evening we also have been assigned the fiscal crisis and management assistant team by the county otherwise known as fmat who analyzed our budget and um confirmed um the current situation that we're in with the $20 million deficit that we have and we also had were required by the slar County Office of Education to present a um proposal on how we're going to address jce deficit because we did have a a conditional budget this was uh presented to the county and approved by the board in October and they are looking then

040in December to see uh whether we will follow through on um um on what we said we're going to do which is basically make sure we balance our budget and the board also approved the use of a process to come up with closing with as much as nine schools so that's how we got to this point here today now what we wanted to do was to create um an outcome can you can you get see get that little yeah I'm I'll go this way here we go um we wanted the outcome for the process was that for us to come up with a way that would maintain the positive climate of the district allowing for Community input a smoother uh staff execution plan once the thank you thank you um once the decision was made

041and then also maintaining positive community relations let me share the context of this process I have been through um School closure four times one myself as a superintendent and three times Consulting with districts um there is nothing more difficult than having to close schools there's nothing more difficult for a board there nothing more difficult for a superintendent for the staff the community for the kids it is a u budgetary yes but it's more importantly a psychological and a political process it is extremely extremely difficult and it should only be done when it's absolutely necessary no one wants to say well we want to close schools just to close schools the alternatives to this would be um as we looked at it were as follows cut programs um and honestly uh in Alam Rock there aren't

042enough programs to cut to arrive at $10 million You' have to cut everything you'd have to cut every single program anything not related to the classroom um you'd have to reduce employee compensation opportunities basically saying the employees will never get another raise because there's just not going to be the county was not going to approve any kind of a budget that um is not going to be balanced there's always the possibility of raising revenue like through a parcel tax but this District already has been very generously supported by the community with a very generous parcel tax and of course the the final alternative which is the most um drastic is that the should the board fail to take action in terms of um approving how we're going to consolidate schools that the county will take

043over the district and appoint a district and administrator with complete authority to balance the budget and usually it's someone like me a retired superintendent who comes in uh the board is no longer um has any Authority the contracts and contracts are void the only uh responsibility of that individual would be to balance the budget without any Community input they basically become it's like the sole Arbiter of what happens in the district that's the budgetary part but the most difficult part is the psychological part it's a very painful and emotional process it impacts everyone in the organization it impacts Administration it impacts parents teachers kids the community neighbors it touches everyone and is a very painful psychological emotional process it means that when you're closing schools it means that you're doing something that um important to

044everyone and people grieve because you're taking something away from them that is very very emotional which is why it makes it so so difficult everyone experiences a sense of loss everyone experiences um a sense that they're losing to and this loss is very real and people experience it differently not everyone experiences in the same way some take a longer time to get accustomed to it others may go a couple years before they eventually adjust to it but it is a very painful and a very real process it's also very political um decision a school district is an educational institution but it's also a political one it has an elected Board of Trustees but your human beings the board are people you're part of the community you're subject to political iCal pressures and it makes it

045really difficult I was presenting at a school and um someone had in the process of it someone made a comment and said well we can always go to the board I said yes you can the next question was how do we arrived at this point and I pointed to the person who said we can go to the board and I said because every time this board has attempted to do that they haven't been able to do it because of political pressure if alrock had closed three schools five years ago we would not be here today this is cumulative there is not enough Runway now there's only two years we don't have years to kind of make it up cut things slowly that's unfortunate but it's just the reality and that's why it becomes a budgetary

046psychological and also political context when we went into the process these were the assumptions first of all the board makes the final decision okay this is your this is going to be the board's call however you're not making it in a vacuum we established a stakeholder committee to make an informed recommendation to the superintendent who in turn would make the recommendation to the board the superintendent is the one who makes the recommendation to the board not the committee and the reason that we do that is we want to take the committee off the hook in that respect it's challenging enough to be a member of the community to be asked to look at potentially um looking at closing your own school and so in this way the responsibility falls on the superintendent to make the

047final recommendation and of course the most important assumption no one wants to close schools no one's going to volunteer and say oh let's do this this is the last alternative and if there were any other Alternatives you would definitely be looking at it unfortunately um you're at the point right now where you've got to close you've got to come up with $20 million in right now less than two years so this was the committee the composition um we had a parent rep um from each school and the board made it very clear when you approve this that the the the representative must reside within District boundaries I point this out because in the middle of the process there was one individual that was found to be not part of uh the community which they sered

048within the boundary and that person unfortunately uh was asked to leave so this was a clear directive from the board we had representations from Key Community groups who've been part of this district for a long time soos Mayfair Kango um gra and um what was the other one I forget the other one that was there but we had representation from the neighborhood our labor representatives were there our partners from the associ ations members of the management team the executive cabinet was there in a non-voting resource capacity the superintendant was there in a non-voting fallback capacity if the committee could not arrive at a recommendation we also had our marketing consultant non- voting and two facilitators myself and uh my partner Michael S and before I go through the process I want to acknowledge the commit

049themselves this was a significant time commitment as you're going to see we met nine times we added an extra meeting we went uh the meetings went from two two and a half hours um in length they were asked to look at the interest of the entire district and the committee themselves experienced their own psychological and emotional toll it was very hard especially when it got down to the final part it was very emotional it was intense at times but all of them in my opinion really tried to look at the best interest of the district it was a very challenging process I will say this as I mentioned this is the fourth time this is the most difficult um process that I've ever personally been involved in for a variety of reasons um one is

050the size of the committee was so long and what we're looking at nine schools out of 21 is almost unheard of well not almost it is unheard of of that's almost half of the half of the district so I do want to acknowledge the committee and everything uh the time and commitment that they that they put into the process the administration role is to execute the policies passed by the Board of Trustees um to provide the facilitation or the allow for that to happen for the process and ultimately um and also provide information you're going to see when I go through the various committees the information that they re received and that the superintendent will be making the final recommendation to the Board of Trustees this was the charge that the committee was given uh

051because of the dramat dramatic decline in student enrollment and the reason that we are in this position they just aren't enough students um you've received information on this um five years ago I believe the enrollment in this District was I think was about 12,000 we're about 7,400 now and projected to be at 5 ,400 in four to five years this is going on all over the county it's going all over the region there just aren't enough students enrolling in schools the challenge was to um meet the boards authorization to recommend closure of up to nine schools to provide the recommendation with as many as nine schools to consider and again this is important to emphasize not for this year for 2526 because um should you make the decision moving forward I will say this haven't

052been through this many times um the really hard work starts after that decision is made because there's so much transitional um uh activities that need to take place in terms of moving not only materials but where people and students are going to be moving it's a very challenging process on the other hand as part of the charge that the superintendent gave us this is an opportunity to imagine a new Alam rock this issue of the budget has been over um over your heads for a long time you've been struggling for this there have been attempts trying and we reach this moment here today at some point when we get through this there'll be an opportunity to move forward and imagine a new uh alumrock as I've mentioned many times and I know the superintendent's mentioned

053it as well alumrock is land rich but cash poor there isn't any money to do anything can't give raises to employees can't put in programs to compete with Charters all the resources go into keeping these very very small schools which are just simply not sustainable you cannot have schools of 300 um and middle schools of under 400 and sustain the amount of um resources that's needed to keep that to keep that going but this is a real opportunity to be able to look forward and reimagine the school district um in the future as I mentioned um I was the facilitator and Michael Seda was my co-partner and our marketing consultant was Heather mcgaan I don't I didn't know if she's here I believe she's here someplace in the building this these were the meetings so

054we um we met and the first meeting was why and um our assistant super intendant of business Teresa delelis presented on the budget why we're in the situation um and how we arrived at the point of needing to close schools in order to meet this budget um crisis that we currently have right now we then presented the committee with all the information that was available in fact this committee is more informed on the district only second only to you as a board they received information information on demographics you know enrollment how we got to this point in terms of numbers they received information on facilities received information on programs and information and Human Resources then we developed different criteria and then begin the prior prioritization process which is really really difficult we added an extra

055meeting to give us a little bit more time and then on October 30th the committee presented a recommendation now let me say something about this because this is really important we had arrived at an agreement on um seven of the school six schools in Chavez right so seven and on the final day um uh members of the committee and I had encouraged them to think about different options came in with an alternative set of options so we had to revisit the schools that these indiv uals were presenting after going through this process we arrived at agreement on seven we could not reach agreement on the final three there was a significant majority of the committee agreed with the recommendations of the subcommittee that had presented it but there was a sizable minority that felt like

056they were not part of that process and could not agree on those recommendations I noticed in the newspaper that it said there are 30 13 schools to be recommended that was actually false it was really seven plus the 3 three which made which made 13 and then we turned it over to the superintendent and said you have to make a decision we cannot agree in the final three and so the superintendent was now looking at 13 options not 13 schools to close I did see that in the report and that was really um um not accurately reported so it was really uh turned over to the superintendent to arrive at the final three recommendations and of course we're now here at the public hearing today on the 21st next week we'll have a board information

057again we'll be re reviewing this again and presenting the information to you and then on December 2nd it would be up to you to consider board action the challenges I mentioned that made this um the most difficult and I've facilitated many different meetings not just on school closure um this the most difficult number one the size of the committee we're looking at 31 people it's a lot of people to try to get to agree and to uh be able to arrive at such a quick timeline we didn't have a lot of time because we're looking at December requirement to have something to the county that said this is what we're going to be doing for the future in order to be able to get the first interim report that the assistant superintendent will be needing

058to bring to your attention for approval in December the number of schools is significant there's a lot of schools given the size of the district almost half of the schools in the district that is extremely challenging um to arrive at that number it's amazing that the committee could agree with the seven um honestly and um arriving at the final three is really not surprising because it was really difficult to get to that point and then finally the lack of a Runway we just don't have a lot of time there are only two this year and next year in terms of the um where we have to balance the budget and we also had to be able to get this done in a relatively short timeline and again uh my Commendation to the committee meeting every

059week uh over a nwe period giving up considerable amount of time to dedicate to this process after they received the information we went through a process where people the the committee members could asked questions with they we discussed it and after intensive question and discussion then we went through the prioritization agreement process and then we arrived at agreement as I mentioned we arrived at consensus on seven not on the final three these were the criteria that the committee was asked to consider that they identifi how close a school was to a charter by the way if you see a little asteris next to it those were the ones that the committee thought were especially important just so you know is it close to a charter is there a neighboring school that can accept the students

060is the capacity um of the school maintenance costs some schools are more expensive than others uh they're older haven't been maintained for a while enrollment the size of the school will Transportation be required in other words if you close school a is transport ation going to be required to get them to go to their receiving school special education facilities and I should mention it was made clear from the very beginning that special education programs are not eliminated any services to special education students are maintained so if they go to another school they are maintained but we did want to take a look at the criteria was step for looking at specific special education facilities for example uh special education for preschool they have special needs in terms of how uh the facilities are maintained so

061you can't just pick them up and put them anywhere else without making sure that the facility is are going to be there to receive them any special programs that might be there again um I want to emphasize like for example there was a lot of um appreciation for our Vietnamese program and our um dual immersion and our Spanish dual immersion and that those programs if those schools were impacted we're not going to eliminate the program may change the building but not the program itself and then any schools that might have been receiving um a community Grant so these are the criteria that we were looking at the information presented to the committee was made available to the community after each meeting on parents square that was the role of our marketing um assistant the superintendent

062has been holding towns Hall meetings at the school and also um districtwide uh on Zoom um not only by the way um I've been involved in meeting with schools and I know Hermon before while this process was going on and then after the recommendation was made um the superintendent has been holding Town Hall meetings and even after today those meetings will continue the prior the prioritization process the community reached consensus on seven schools and as I mentioned could not reach consensus on the final three we were looking at two different scenarios the one we had agreed upon and the one that the subcommittee had come in and said hey we've got some other ideas we discussed them we could not reach consensus um on on the um the final three and so the fallback was

063to take it to the superintendent who then will present those recommendations to you this evening after the committee the committee was made the recommendation was made to the superintendent and it was up to the superintendent to accept or modify the recommendation and then Community meetings were held to allow input and again the um the town hall meetings I've attended the zoom meetings I participated people can ask questions the superintendent presented his rationale and allowed for Community input to him as tonight you will have the opportunity to hear Community input presented directly to you the superintendent considered the recommendations of the school consolidation committee considering the rationale and framing of the recommendation as to why it's essential and then how it will benefit the district and students in the future so this was the responsibility of

064the superintendent and his team to take this into account again the post committee as I mentioned this evening is the uh hearing the public hearing and then the information uh and this is the process that has to be followed by the way there's some people mo why are we doing this three times um first is the public hearings you can hear from the public the formal information presentation that we you receive next week and then on December 2nd uh for your consideration to take action should the board decide to accept the recommendations I did want to mention this because this comes up in conversation um what happens after that as I mentioned this is when the hard work starts um addressing student concerns about their new school where they would be going and this takes

065time in order to plan this so there's going to be you know time between now and the start of the Year meeting with parent groups so parent from one school meeting with parents of the others getting together um to me to talk about what this new school is going to look like staff meeting with one another going from one school to another um any facilities modifications that need to be made to take the additional students that has to be taken into account instructional materials need to be moved from one site to another and then finally at the end a closure process where people have a chance to say goodbye to their school and moving forward to their new school and let me say this moving instructional materials that's easy in impacting the facilities that's easy

066the hard part is a psychological part that people have to go through moving from one site to another that's the most challenging part because when you have um people coming from one school to another the culture change changes and that is going to be a significant challenge um as well as dealing with the realization that um you know the reason that this saves money because there are people who are not are not going to have jobs next year this is a really serious emotional issue at this point I'll take any questions from the board before um turn it over to any questions from the board questions no okay thank you thank you Mr repair you let me go with my recommendation let me go with my recommendation first before public comments thank you so I

067just want to read something to to the trustees real quick that I put together regarding the closures so good evening trustees we can barely hear you good evening trustees can you hear me now yes okay thank you sorry about that uh when I accepted the role of uh superintendent here at alrock Union School District I understood that difficult decisions would lie ahead but very quickly recommending School Clos ures and consolidations is one of the most challenging responsibilities I could face and it's one I bring forward with a heavy heart after thoroughly assessing our financial challenges and the reality of our $20 million budget deficit I am here today to recommend that a path that while painful is essential for securing the district's fiscal stability and providing our students with the highest quality education your support

068enabled the formation of the superintendent School closure and consolidation committee a team representing diverse educational Partners from across the district this dedicated group May met eight times nine times actually and some members even convened informally between sessions working tirelessly to establish Fair criteria for evaluating which schools might be considered for closure or consolidation their guiding principle we must make decisions in the best interest of the district as a whole not just one school I heard that many times during the committee meeting um underscores the care and thoroughness with which they approach their work I deeply appreciate their commitment to our District's Mission and to all the effort they devoted to this challenging process over the last couple of months I have held and will continue to hold town Hall meetings in person or via Zoom

069at the schools under consideration and hosted District wide open Zoom sessions to gather feedback I've listened to a wide range of voices parents students family members teachers and staff many have shared heartfelt reasons for keeping their schools open expressing concerns about Transportation School Community bonds and relationships with beloved teachers and principles others understand the financial situation we are facing and recognize the need for difficult choices that will allow us to offer more robust programs including additional electives and accelerated courses to better support our students the recommendation I'm about to make will touch every student in the district each school has a unique culture and closing or consolidating school impact students and families deeply it means helping students transition to new environments where they will need new support understanding and patience as they adjust as well

070consolidation will also bring change as some programs May merge at different campuses While others maintain their identities under new leadership redesigning schools May shift shift May shift age and grade levels requiring some students to relocate while preserving programs that serve their communities the decision I'm about I am presenting will affect approximately students I am committed to ensuring that throughout this transition our students families and staff receive all the support they need to feel welcomed valued and encouraged in their new school communities moving forward with this recommendation will enable our district to become leaner bringing resources to better support our students teachers principes and staff together we will emerge stronger and better equipped to serve our our District's future and so with that well I'll ask Daniel can you put up the presentation I'll go over

071the recommendation that I will be making to the board so the recommendation that I'm making to the board is that I'm recommending seven school closures two consolidations and one school to redesign it the first school would be Sylvia Cassel elementary school and just a brief overview it would save us it's an immediate Savings of uh $ 932 uh, there's a deferred maintenance of $7.7 million these are the this is the maintenance that it would take for all the schools I'll just explain it here that it would require that we would need to invest to to fix and keep the school functioning it's got a neighboring elementary school and it's got low enrollment aptitude Academy is another school its immediate savings is $1.1 million to the district the Deferred maintenance is at $8.2 million and it

072also has limited capacity for growth and it's under 400 students Donald Meer Al School immediate savings $900,000 a deferred maintenance of $7.5 million low enrollment very low utilization which means it's under the 50% if not 40% operational capacity of students that are enrolled at that school 92 students have already transferred to other alumrock Union School District Schools Horus Horus Curtin Elementary School school has an immediate Savings of $856,000 deferred maintenance is a little bit above the 8.3 8. million it has $600,000 in immediate needs it also has 53 students that already transfer to LV and 18 students transferred to McCollum the other three schools Lindo Elementary School immediate Savings of almost $1 million a deferred maintenance of $8 A5 million and its low enrollment at under way under the 300 it has limited access uh

073to Vehicles adding more students would exacerbate safety concerns and this came up a lot Renaissance Academy at shirt the immediate savings is $1.4 million it's actually the highest Savings in the district their deferred maintenance is almost $14 million that would be have that that we would have to invest to fix the uh the school property it's got low enrollment it would bolster a college enrollment protect the Renaissance model at Ram Renaissance at Matson Joseph George Middle School the immediate savings are at $1.3 million second to fiser deferred maintenance is at $9.3 million and it also this also provides an opportunity to bolster Shephard's enrollment to maximize facilities and Shephard uh has an operational capacity of over a thousand students so these are the seven schools that I'm recommending for closure at this moment there are

074the two schools that I'm recommending for consolidation are Lucha learning in an irban Community high achievement a school and merging that one with San Antonio elementary consolidating Lucha keeps the program they keep their school code their CDs code at San Antonio with using some of the facilities at Lucha and it gets us a savings of $700,000 and they're actually generating they're bringing in students from other districts their deferred maintenance is only $45 million the other school I'm recommending to consolidate and keep their CDs code is Ben Ben painter elementary school and they would consolidate at William Shepard Middle School the consolidation of painter keeps their program keeps their CDs code and their immediate savings is $900,000 the Deferred maintenance is6 million but this also allows for us to expand the very special program that they

075have there that's very successful the Vietnam Ames do a long language program and they are attracting a significant number of interdistrict which is outside of the district uh permits this would allow them to expand into Shephard and Shepard has the middle school facilities so that they can grow into a K8 program and continue to attract more of our students but also grow that Vietnamese dual language program and the last school that I'm recommending and this is as a redesign and Chavez Cesar Chavez Early Learning Center has actually been redesigned in the past I believe it was about four years ago and so it has a very low enrollment of 50 there are 58 students that are enrolled at traveis and the cost savings is about $8,000 per student the immediate savings even though it's very

076small it's a very small program we would move the TK and the K the Kinder students to San Antonio and it would save us the $500,000 the special education students would also be moved and they would be moved to Lucha where we could fix the facilities they have the classrooms and we can invest minimal bond funds to fix those facilities so that they're ready to support our special education students and so with that uh uh trustees uh I've attached other documentation uh I've also asked uh marivel to uh there are some documents that we made copies for you uh there's an executive summary that we put together for you that is very detailed and provides you with more detailed information regarding my recommendation and so with that uh President Chavez I'll turn this over to

077you for the uh public hearing thank you um so we're gonna now take public comment everybody has uh one minute um if and I see that there's over 20 in line so we're only going to do 20 speakers unless you're someone who is going to oppose uh closing so so uh one second go ahead I would ask that we don't limit um public comment um the time at at least an hour if you're already limiting um to a minute because the purpose is the public hearing part excuse me you do have a right to speak but not to speak out so please be respectful and we'll uh Talk Amongst ourselves thank you um I'm in agreement with uh excuse me wait to be C Oh I thought you looked at me no I didn't okay

078let me know when you're ready for yes I will when I call your name thank you you know uh uh Madam president I I too would like to advise that at the very least since it's the public hearing uh you know each each speaker you know to allow since we're already cutting it to or I should say limiting comments to one minute I think that you know in the interest of public transparency we this board does does owe a duty to the people of alen rock to allow the people to speak before I call on excuse me before I call on uh truste Corina loera so we'll do that we'll seeing that um the majority of the trustees want to go ahead so we'll allow one hour of public comment so go ahead thank you

079one minute the only thing I would say is that we got to remember that we were elected by the people that live here so we should take the time to listen yes thank you okay go ahead now go ahead and start okay as most of you know my name is Danielle D Ambrosio and I'm a proud proud teacher at lindel elementary school for 24 years I would first like to say that Lindale was not on the original list and second what about our community school grant money where is that going to go if we close and it seems like you're cutting out the entire middle of alen rock like George kurtin and Lindale and that's just not okay for our school our students in our community and I also have a list here of over

0801,000 signatures from parents teachers and the community um signing that they would like to keep lindel open and why it is important to us and our community I'm Gonna Leave This with you Min because I feel like you will take good care of it and I also would like to say get Lindale off that list my name is Kristen Mohler and I'm a teacher at lindel school for 27 years before I start my talk I'd like to say thank you to trusty Herrera Lua who arranged the schedule so that the parents voices can be heard I have many students who are small children that's very kind of you enrollment has been declining for years you knew the covid money was temporary so now instead of a slow strategic precise approach to cutting Like a well-informed

081Surgeon we must now use a chainsaw it's extremely poor planning on the part of the district and I'm very sorry about that and mostly to you our families who's paying the price because it's just not right again my name is Christen Mohler and I've been a teacher at Lindell school for 27 years you can see my poster board here please take some time to consider the proximity to our school to other charter schools in our district the suggested school closures of both Lindale and kuron will leave a gaping wound in the special pocket of town one of the suggested schools that Linda will be split between please just let me go speaker please speak up thank you hi good evening my name is Maria Martinez and oh can you please sit down you're being disrespectful

082to the rest thank you no it's okay all right I know I know tensions are high yeah um hi good evening my name is Maria Martinez and I was the Alam Rock Educators Association representative to be on the school consolidation committee and the committee's work was very challenging and very dis difficult um it is a little unfortunate that um the messaging that has been sent out was that there was not a consensus from the committee me knowing that the word consensus means a majority of people with their recommendation so I understand that ultimately it is the superintendent's decision um just know that area has been very supportive in the in knowing that the school closures need to happen to maintain Financial solvency I hope uh we can continue to M maintain a positive relationship in

083working through this process and I also want to thank truste fam for um making a plan that would leave Lindale open and um saves more than the superintendent projected savings thank you uh good evening my name is rul pis and I've been at atan one since day one um but I'm here tonight uh just to one thank the committee for keeping keeping both Atlanta one and two off the closure list um but I want to encourage that we maintain adante one a k2a and if needed if we need to combine both adante one and two that we do so maybe at fiser we don't oppose the ladder but if you combine our schools you will have cap you will have Capt the growth of for each school and the ability to bring in more revenue

084from day one our school has been a school of success welcoming um and safe for our students but also it has built great Community um our Middle School serves is beneficial to our elementary students because they serve as mentors to our kids so please please keep our school at the lante kq8 thank you you hello my name is Lisa desb I'm a TK teacher at Ben painter school have you thought about my question is have you thought about making painter and Shepherd at prek 8 school we would be able to keep all the programs that currently exist as is and enroll students from middle and elementary schools we will lose students by your proposal they will leave our school if our school culture changes we have a really good thing going for us our families

085are happy we are attracting more families from out of the district each year this is a good choice for our district it makes sense to consolidate painter and Shepherd but not the way it's been proposed thank you good evening my name is Nina andz Riva and I stand before you to address the impact of potential school closures on our dedicated staff and teachers first I want to emphasize the importance of adhering to the recommendations provided by the committee these recommendations are the result of careful consideration and reflection on the needs of our schools and Community ignoring these insights would not only undermine the efforts of those who worked diligently to provide them but would also reflect a lack of respect for the educational Mission we all share there following their guidance is an opportunity to

086demonstrate that you are indeed serving the best interests of our community rather than your personal agendas I'd also be remiss by not including the impact that this school closures and consolidation would have on staff and teachers those that are the backbone of our educational community and those who are actually in the trenches because I have not seen you in any of our classrooms good evening my name is Lisa Tut Hill and I'm a proud parent at of a child at Renaissance at fiser and Linda vist Elementary School I was honored to serve on this committee deciding which schools in our community might close believing our voices would truly be heard and respected my family values accountability transparency inclusiveness and kindness values we hope to reflect in this process however as we went along it became

087clear that the district already had its own agenda despite our hard work and a strong consensus from 90% of us on which schools should close and why our recommendations were ignored then the district claim we couldn't reach a consensus which is simply not true we expected more from this Administration we expected genuine accountability transparency leadership but instead this process felt like we were a box to check off for Optics if you truly believe your decision is in the best interest of our children then you're not listening to our community you need to start by recognizing our input respect our voices and hold your yourselves to the same accountability you expect from us as parents explain to the community why you the district not the parent committee is closing Renaissance a Fisher when they have 105

088inner and outer District TR thank you for your speak I know you got one minute like everybody else that's why we're gonna give the next speaker a chance thank you you want to give them your speech go ahead but in the meantime next speaker please thank you very much yes uh you can hand it sure yes thank you thank you okay next speaker please first off I would like to talk about the Committee Member that was removed from aptitude I'm here in behalf of aptitude we weren't given after he was removed we weren't given the opportunity for replacement to represent our school which is one of the most important things that should have happened we should have had the opportunity to have a replacement um and we weren't given that second and the recommendations from

089the committee and the superintendent did not include our children's safety the area in which these schools are going to be located academics none of that was spoken of in in the slides that I saw our school was on that list supposedly before this slide because of low enrollments and now it's because we don't have capacity so which one is it now it just seems like it's a biased decision but we have to take a look at the area we are going to be exposing our children to gangs drugs and not a school that's meeting um standards please keep the aptitude off the list thank you can the next speaker start as soon as I stop clapping thank you Christine VI me one second please can you please move on to the back thank you so

090the PE people can move up thank you very much okay go ahead my name is Christine vial I am an Alam Rock parent for the last 15 years and I want to thank our adalante 1 families for coming out to support this evening they are out here not because the school's being closed they're out here for three reasons one to support the other schools that are going through these horrible closures so we're here to be to receive to support um and to figure out the best way to move forward uh the second reason is because we do have a strong community that would come out even when there's not a closure uh because it's a k38 model and we've talked about that we've seen that reflected in some proposals and we appreciate that k through

091eight being maintained uh the third is I want the uh board to consider one important thing with the proposal that trusty fam just uh came up with if the two adantes are combined into one site it almost caps the enrollment at that site once you transition TK and Kinder classrooms which have higher capacity as we know than the older grades and that doesn't allow for growth so I'm hoping and imploring that as we think about moving forward as a district that we think about how to bring more Revenue in and capping it is not going to allow to bring hi my name is Kim Mesa I'm um product of alrock my children all went to alrock my granddaughter now goes to alumrock I'm a former board member who sat on the board when we closed

092schools and we were very thoughtful of that process and while we did close two schools when I during my tenure there was no backlash there was no meetings like this where parents were coming and crying because we included the community in the decision that did not happen we came to a consensus on schools using a very thoughtful process looking at all the neighborhoods in the district ensuring that each one had an elementary school looking at the socioeconomic factors for each School looking at the gang distribution around to make sure that all the schools were safe and we by consensus gave a recommendation to the superintendent and 10 minutes later he went to the staff and the principals and lied and said that we couldn't come to consensus that is very disingenuous and lastly I really

093need to mention that the district thank you very much for speaking thank you very much for speaking can we have the next speaker come up please thank you very much for your time thank you for everybody being respectful and thank you for uh all being here we do appreciate it and a lot of times sometimes some people get out of control but we're trying to be respectful to everybody so that every body could speak thank you very much can the next speaker come up please you had your time uh can we please have her um removed if she continues no please be dis please be letting the next speaker speak it's not about everything about you please be respectful to others thank you very much do you want to go ahead and speak next speaker

094or should we just we can always cut the co public comment if this is going to continue can we please continue with the next one exactly I am I am a her speed thank you very much I am a parent I'm an alumni I'm a healthcare worker I speak on behalf of aptitude I speak on behalf of our students aptitude Academy at gos is more than just a school it's a heartbeat of the Capitol Park neighborhood a cheris pillar into the alen Rock Union Elementary School District for over 40 years for Generations this K8 school has been a safe place a Beacon of Hope nurturing the dreams of children for diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds in which we still face with over 89% % of our students qualified for free A reduced price lunches aptitude

095has made an unwavering commitment to equity inclusion and support for every children who walks through its doors our school is not just a place of learning it's a Vibrant Community where every child is seen valued and uplifted from kindergarten through 8th grade we I span I talk on behalf of our parents who aren't here who are healthcare workers working thank you thank you hi my name is Gloria and I'm here to present aptitude at GS um thanks to the generosity of platforms like donors chose and a remarkable private donor who has contributed over 200,000 our classrooms are filled with essential resources technology art supplies books and more these contributions have been vital in creating enriching educational experiences for our students however if after to disclos this funding and support will come to an abrupt end

096leaving our children to a tremendous lost last year alongside our dedicated staff we fought tirelessly to keep our Beloved School open and now we find ourselves in that fight once again aptitude is just is one of the most socioeconomically challenged schools in the district serving families who often lack of resources of resources to transport their children to other schools our k38 model offers a crucial Lifeline allowing families to make a single drop off for their elementary and middle school children their thank you go ahead hi my name is iness and I'm representing attitude the benefits of our kinder to eighth grade model are just not not just practical they are profound re research shows that school like aptitude offer significant Advantage improve academic performance social and emotional stability leadership opportunities parental engagement and reduce behavioral

097issues aptitude is more than just a school We are family that sense of belonging support and love that fills our house cannot be replicated elsewhere we are proud to say go Gators as attachement to our strength and resilience we we hope that you just not here with your ears we hope that you'll listen us to with uh your hearts you Sandra Sanchez good evening my name is Sandra Sanchez members allow me a few more minutes seconds oh one second I just want to make a clarification because he's uh translating when this happens they are allowed two minutes go ahead thank you I'm a parent representing aptitude okay read is more aptitude is more than just a school we are a family the sense of belonging support and love that fills our Halls cannot be replicated

098El elsewhere we are proud to say go Gators as a testament to our strength and resist we humbly ask you to reconsider the recommendation to close our school aptitude Academy at gos is not just a place it's a Lifeline a community a family please help us keep our doors open so that we can continue to nurture the minds and hearts of our children for years to come we hope that you hear listen to us through your ears your mind and your hearts thank you thank you good evening all California students deserve a high quality culturally responsive Arts education 89% of public schools in the state fail to offer mandated Visual and Performing Arts classes students from lowincome backgrounds with Arts Ritz instruction have are five times less likely to drop out of school four times

099more likely to be recognized for academ mic achievement and 30% more likely to pursue a professional career Arts education addresses academic achievement attendance Soft School skills development and career Readiness the Arts matter I urge the board to consider this when making final decisions students at lindel elementary will be over a mile away from suggested sites and our SDC classes would be disadvantaged Lindell as a vapa site has art choir piano musical theater band and Mariachi classes please keep Lindale Elementary open thank you good evening my name is Jennifer Garcia I'm a proud graduate of this District I'm deeply confused and concerned by the proposal to close Renaissance at fiser over the years this district has faced one SCA scandal after another and our community's potential has often been overlooked we have incredible students dedicated teachers

100and supportive families but it feels that as though the district fails to represent us as we truly are resilient hardworking and full of promise I'm worried that closing Renaissance official will only deepen this mis misrepresentation how can we close the one school with the highest test scores the most intr District transfers without sending a message that is completely out of touch with the needs of our students the decision to close res at Fisher looks more as a a political move maneuver than one made of the best interest of our students the very group that this district is supposed to prioritize we can't afford to continue making decisions that furnish tarnish our District's reputation instead we need to Let's prioritize what is best thank you hello my name is Caitlyn Santo I am a product of

101the east side of the Alam Rock School District and I would like to welcome our superintendent to Al Rock I would also like to address the fact that so much time was spent addressing all of our psychological damage that everyone in this room and outside of this room in our community will be facing you don't need to tell us we know we feel it we've been feeling it um for me personally as a fifth year teacher at Renaissance um I have felt it since day one when I started teaching down the street on Bigwood Drive in my parents house um then after that my second year first year in person consolidating with Fisher and adjusting to a whole new change at our school um and then year after year it's one thing after another last

102year we were in a situation where we were adjusting to a new superintendent and now we are just finding ways to continue to heal and I hope that you consider saving Renaissance at Fischer and conserving our cohort model that really just makes us more than a school we are clearly a family thank you thank you my name is Sarah Kix and I've been in the district for about 17 years I've been at rra for 16 of those years and so my first ask is that you keep Renaissance at Fischer open my if that cannot happen my ask is that you consolidate the two Renaissance to preserve the model we have a different model we were developed differently we were developed by parents we were developed by teachers it is not the same model as any

103other school in this District District that is my number one ask the other thing I feel like I need to address is that I've emailed all of you to hold the district accountable these parents are pissed they're mad because the district's report is untrue it's misleading it is not what happened in the committee I am asking the board to meet with the committee members themselves to talk to them to listen to this community I've been in alrock for a long time we need honesty and we need transparency we cannot go backwards we did this 16 years ago where people were fighting at the board meetings we don't need to go back to that we need to go forward thank you hello my name is emila and as I've said I'm a former student of both

104rocket ship and Lindell so I can tell you that Lindell is far better than rocket ship the charter schools do not compare to Lindale or to other um schools that are part of the district so it's not fair to say that oh but they have those surrounding them so students can go there they are not they do not offer even half of the things that lindel offers so you are doing a disservice to those students on top of the fact that our students that have disabilities do not have or do not have as many accommodations that they would get at a district school at any of those other schools we've been having issues with funding how is that still ongoing where is that funding going why are we still having this reoccurring issue time after

105time this should not have been going on for this long and for Linda or for the person who has said that our non-english speaker parents do not value education what kind of words are those thank you very much those are thank you very much next speaker my name is Jackie saparo and I'm a teacher at Renaissance at Fisher the dishonesty and lack of transparency throughout this process has been incredibly frustrating especially with the district office that should be trying to rebuild credibility we all know that school closures are heartbreaking but when you misrepresent the work of the committee you change it from heartbreaking to infuriating the consolidation committee did not recommend Renaissance and Fisher for closure the district did and you pretended like it was the work of the committee it is is it because

106you and the board have plans for fer that you don't want to disclose I sincerely hope that eventually everything comes to light but I along with the general public here today will not trust a word of it I also hope at a minimum that you realize that closing Renaissance at Fischer a school that over 105 students from outside of our boundary choose to attend is a move in the wrong direction you will lose students you will lose quality teachers by closing us rather than consolidating us and worst of all you will destroy a community that has proven year after year to be an exemplary model of Education thank you very much next speaker hello my name is Juliana I'm here to support Renne cons Academy at Fisher a school is more than just a building

107it's a heart of our community a place where children learn grow and form life bonds closing Renaissance at Fisher would not only disrupt our students education but would also leave a void that can be easily fulfilled School means to me making friends and finding people that I am comfortable speaking to and understand me also the amazing teachers who have been there to support support me and help me with my education the teachers at Renaissance care about me as a person and a student a Renaissance student means being part of all the programs that they have to offer like mess steam Tech Squad bossy and girls who code has helped me grow educ educ educationally and personally I am here today in front of you giving a speech thanks to Renaissance who has showed me to

108speak up for myself and for what I want closing our school who is one of the highest red would not only impact my community but my education thank you hello my name is Asus I would like to start by saying that Renaissance Academy Was Not Elected by the committee but that it was rather elected by the superintendent yet Renaissance Academy does not mean any of the criteria for the school to be closed Renaissance Academy is one of the highest performing in terms of academics achievement demonstrating its Effectiveness and preparing students for Success if you go on to Google and type in best school in the Alam Rock School District for school to come up Renaissance at Fischer we will be at one at one time this campus also housed two two other schools so there

109is space for everyone it is conveniently located near a school providing students with easy access to additional resources and opportunity for Learning renissance Academy maintains a strong AC academic reputation contributing positive to students education development it has a supportive and engaging Community with strong relationships between students staff and families which helps Foster a positive and nurturing environment I would also like to state if the school was closed the closest school would be about 20 minutes walking distance which many of the students have to do one of my daughter is the one who just spoke thank you Madame President um I will be Sid translating the notes of the parent after she reads them in Spanish thank you thank you r repr L as a parent concerned with the possible The Proposal of the possible shutdown

110or closure of lineal Elementary it's an it's an important school for our community and with we're also concerned with the closures of other schools in our district and I understand as a district we have a lot of work to do to keep our school open we need to advocate for those school districts so they can receive Equitable funding but actually it's all about postal areas or postal codes we need to resolve the issue with the clo school closures it's important to advocate for the students who are neglected where it's important to defend the quality of Education of our children we are in one of the states that manages the most money and it's ridiculous that we we are living through this situation with education and east side of San Jose we need our voices to

111be heard please don't shut down the voices of our teachers of our children and our families that we represent at Lindale keep Lindale open please hi my name is Michelle Martinez and I'm a a parent of a student at Joseph George if you were to close Joseph George for my child to get to Shephard he would need to cross multiple intersections each day Alum Rock white and mcke in September I happened to come across a horrific accident Rec uh involving one of our local high school students imagine making our middle school students cross all these bu busy intersections multiple times a day I don't even feel safe Crossing many of these roads one of the bullet points I noticed on the presentation we were giving at George was that the ability the parents would have

112have the ability to transport these students who makes these assumptions is George being targeted because we're outside the city limits another major concern for me is the amount of violence that I hear about at Shepard I'm told our C students can transfer if they want but let me be clear here if I didn't have to have my student in this District I wouldn't I've tried to transfer out of this district and I'm denied because of where I live which isn't fair thank you as the superintendent said about B Pinter especially the Dual program is doing well the school has increasing enrollment good location and the Dual program has good academic performance which attract more parents to send their children to the program however the plan is to move some of the classes higher grades at

113B Pinter over to Shephard campus and many parents has a big concern in ter of safety the restroom was not size appropriate for the younger student and potentially roling and other problems due to the huge a gap so how the school district going to plan to manage that it is safer to keep all the grad together at Ben Pinter campus rather than mixing up with the um shepher students hello everybody my name is laa and I have lived in the San Jose for over 25 years my three children have grown up in the school of this District my son Miguel anel the youngest one of them is in Ren and Matson and now he's going through different worries and traumas see family and friends having to move to other state because of the huge and

114crazy increase in the rent now he has to go through more traumas and worries seeing that the school where his friends and him and been attendant are closing we live in one of the richest cities in the world and it's impossible to keep this schools open why do the most vulnerable communities always have to suffer the most from the bad decision of a assistant that is collapsing today I come here not only to support Matson and Lucha where my son and I have found a community and a family but also to support my community and not let this bad decision divide us but to support each other together and be a strong not to the closure of any school in the Alan Rock District thank you [Music] graas hello I'm Luna I'm in second grade

115I'm at alante 1 please keep my school TK through 8th grade open please EDI Gonzalez parent atalante 1 are atlante 1 and 2's K to K8 dual immersion schools in Alam marok are a Cornerstone of Equity Community resistance love dreams and opportunity for our students and families by maintaining the K8 models in our schools we provide a seamless stable envir environment where students develop bil lingualism by literacy and cross-cultural competence skills critical for success in a diverse world as a former teacher of adalante 1 and two our schools are to fully help develop and nourish our students full potential which entails seeing their early start in TK and to support their growth into their teenage years as eighth graders linguistically developmentally and emotionally we are we all know the importance of having one teacher one

116adult believe in your potential and having one caring and committed adult in our lives can help repair and heal trauma at adante 1 and two our students don't just have one caring adult they have multiple and not just over the course of one year but over the course over the course of 8 to nine please maintain our our schools K8 thank you thank you good evening I'm a parent and Al a a of a student at Ben painter and I'm also an educator at Independence High School um myself and many of my students uh are very disappointed that painter will be Consolidated I I've heard from my students that Shepherd's a bit rough so I'm very concerned as a parent to send my child there uh um and I think that as a school it's

117been amazing principal men luo has done a an amazing job in bringing the community together and over the course of our time there it has only grown um and I think that making the change will only cause it to lose its Steam and put the nail in its coffin so I hope you consider leaving it be thank you thank you Maria Chavez good evening my name is Maria Chavez I'm from Madson Renaissance at mson my son is very concerned because he's hearing that his school and other schools are going to be closed uh many other kids went through that process already from the kids that came from Chavez when it was [Music] closed please consider leaving Renaissance and M and open my daughter she's currently attending college he but it's gonna have a great impact

118if you close Renaissance at mson I'm my children's voice I'm the voice for my children because two of my children went through that school and I have another child who's all currently attending that school you shouldn't allow the closure of so many schools because children are already traumatized think a little bit about think about them a little bit more because they're the ones that are going to suffer I don't think you're such bad people are you my son told me please consider saving all the schools Victor Basquez someone's Mayfair we've talked about like various reasons why the school closures we always talk about being unaffordable s Jose being not affordable but also we forget that education is not treated like a like students deserve it or a right but more like a business this state

119in this country can fund education and not put us in a situation where we're fighting each other and we believe everybody here wants academic success for their families we also believe that places like mayfer are often stereotyped and we're punished for having less and then we're being put like we we shouldn't have what we have and they should take away more of our educational resources I ask for a couple things we should stop fighting each other and advocate at the state level because we deserve more than the crumbs that they're giv us and I want to ask the district to think about how to make sure that we support parents during transition train School leaders to make sure that new students are welcom into their schools so there's less tension provide academic support for special

120education students ESL and Foster Care during transition and I would ask you all to Let's advocate for change at the state level thank you good evening my name is Gonzalez I am a former student and a parent of two um students at L BR School District but also an organizer that has been in this District fighting for resources organizing Community for the past 12 years I have been here celebrating um Community license Open Spaces Family Resource Centers but I also been here fighting for transparency and and um accountability when Del Tera and other crisis happened now we're here and this is not new this decision had been taken in 202 when there was another compane created but they couldn't make the decision we cannot close one Squad at a time we're in$ 20 million deficit

121that's the reality we cannot be contined dividing each other versus one school versus the other I know we're angry I know I'm sad I know it hurts me to see how they talk about my community about a community that is poor and it has been under s for centuries but let's create the next steps let's work together let's organize together and let's bring those programs and and let it fight tonight taken away from us thank you thank you hello my name is Veronica mad and I'm a parent from San Antonio it feels like year after year we find ourselves at this same board meeting facing the sem disheartening lack of leadership a leadership that has forgotten its duty to Advocate fiercely for our students and has left our families and communities in distress I am

122beyond beyond disappointed you were entrusted with the education and future of our students and once again you have failed them the time for inaction and excuses is over has been over now you will make the hard decision and blame students blame families for moving blame other expected except yourselves for this failure take full accountability and uplift and strengthen this community now your leadership your position and your seat on this board are not here to serve your interests but to serve our students and their family set up and honor that responsibility Advocate lead in the networks not only represent yourself but represent our students and fight for them good evening trustees and superintendent Serna my name is chamille Swan and I'm a parent at adente 1 and I've worked in partnership with you all for over

12320 years in this District as a nonprofit leader I understand the challenges that are before you are daunting and that just difficult decisions have to be made and I'm not um I know that you have to make these kinds of cuts but what I ask you for is leadership to step into your leadership to figure out ways to hold this entire Community whole what is not okay is for schools to be pitting against each other what is also not okay is these narratives of one neighborhood being better than another neighborhood all of us are suffering if you look in Oakland and you look in San Francisco these are pervasive challenges across our entire region so I ask you for your leadership and to find ways to show up at this time sign up to end

124basic basic Aid like get our school districts what we need to get for this school district make sure that maybe you should start considering District consolidation these one-off districts across our region is not serving anyone I know these are hard things but it's also hard for the parents and children to take brunt after Brent decision thank you hello everyone my name is dula Madrid and I grate for Renaissance Academy at Fisher I arrived in this country in 2022 and I was enrolled in the Fisher School in 2023 thanks to the high education levels of the school I can speak now English and I don't understand how a school with such high educational values decides to close it we should decide our school is for Education value there are good teachers in this schools and I

125I just want my sister and my cousins to graduate from this school thank you very much thank you good evening trustees my name is maestas and I am a teacher at adant academy and I'm here to represent the teachers from adalante and I'd like for the adante teachers and families to please stand because we are here in solidarity with all the other schools that are may be experiencing their closures we are also here with you trustees each decision made regarding closures and employment must recognize the hard work and dedication that we as teachers pour into our classrooms every day it is crucial that we approach the selection of which teachers will remain employed with fairness and transparency fairness and transparency especially for those teachers just beginning their careers the process should be guided by clear

126criteria that reflect not only tenure but but also the unique contributions each teacher brings to our schools their skills and commitment should be acknowledged and respected during these difficult times thank you good evening my name is Olivia Ortiz and I'm my pent uh renesa Matson renesa Matson it's um we might be a very small school but we're Mighty and we have incredible strong parent Community um we do a lot with what little we have um today I'm really sad to see how families are put against each other um I invite all of us actually all of us family board members staff of the district we need to do more we need to do better than this we can't we need all this energy we need to bring it to the this to the state we

127can't there's no way we can be fighting each other to keep a school open it shouldn't bit this way our kids Des serve better all of our kids not one school Des serve to be closer here at the district not one school so I hope that moving forward we do something about this so we don't see we in two or three years we we stay here in the same situation closing more schools we need to be out there fighting for more funds fighting for a fair education for our kids that's what we need to do and hopefully we all get together and start doing that thank you just say it you got this okay you got this I can't speak yes come on you got my name is spot [Music] we have to keep lindle

128open U my name is Ebony I'm an alumni from um Renaissance Academy and my brother goes to Lindale um I had a couple of questions um he struggles with special needs and I just wanted to know um if you're combining schools how are you planning on um keeping kids that have special needs how are you planning on giving them attention that they need um and I wanted to know how you are going to help kids focus in large classrooms um bringing a change into their lives like this is just going to confuse and scare them they'll have to say goodbye to their friends and families sorry their friends and teachers the education in America is bad enough um cramming a bunch of kids in a classroom a small classroom will only hurt our youths these

129are children they are the future I hope that the budgets include nutritious meals integrated meals um these extra um they need extra curriculars each children should get each equal attention I also want to say that we cannot respond but you can but you can refer it to the administration your questions thank you next p next speaker hi I have two jobs at Fischer I'm an after school teacher and I am also a parent educator at the school so I'm there 9 to6 every day if you close down Fisher and expect the students to go to aala you're asking the students to walk down aala Avenue don't know if you've ever driven down there but the city puts up signs to drive slow and be careful because drivers have accidents down that road all the time

130especially with Capital Expressway with their with the new train that they're building you're asking students to cross Capital Expressway every day multiple times a day those lives that get taken are going to be on your hands that's the decision that you're making I want you to know that I want you to take that home with you secondly you are behind that blue table as a service to the community I really don't think you get get to use adjectives to say how you are we get to choose we get to see the choices you make and tell you how you're treating us so I think you should be a little nicer with the time thank you good evening my name is Elis and I'm from Renaissance at Fisher I've been a parent there since 2011 I

131have four children all of which have attended that school the youngest of my children is in sixth grade all these years I witnessed the Magnificent education that all of my children received at that site that school has made a great difference in my community all of the my oldest children my sons all their friends have gra graduated from college or about to graduate from college University my third daughter she's already in the process of application process for several universities and my youngest son has the dream of doing the same thing Rance F I believe that Renaissance at Fisher has what they need to have success and and they proved it demonstrating that they're one of the best schools in the district I'm here I'm kindly requesting that you leave the school open and also leave

132the administrators in that site they had started Renaissance at Fisher thank you so one minute please so right now it's um 7:50 the people that are we're going to go over with the speakers so I'm going to allow the last speaker to speak even though we are going to go over the one hour okay so you'll be the last speaker thank you thank you good evening my name is Joselyn Ms I know most of you up there except Mr Serta I didn't have the pleasure of meeting you but I taught in Alam Rock School District for 35 years I just retired a year and a half ago and uh the last 13 years that I was in the district I was our area president so I it I watch these meetings but I had to

133come out because obviously this is heartbreaking for everyone and I've had the opportunity over 13 years to visit all the schools and know that every one of them has their special quality I did teach Lindale was my home school for 30 years and I did have the opportunity in the early 2000s to be on the writing committee for our distinguished school which we got the award back then and I'm already out of time I can't begin to tell you thank you yeah thank you very much hello my name is Dominic navarez and I'm representing altitude Academy at GS first I want to say why are you guys closing the school last year half the class got over 90% and even though I look like a little kid to you I fight for my school and

134what's right and altitude Academy at Goss is just not a school it's a it's an education place for all the students that are of need of education and I feel like that if you guys are going to close the schools that I'm just going to be left with Ryan Elementary now I'm going to pass it to my dad and go Gators my name is jarz and I repe altitude um I didn't plan on speaking um but looking at the people that came and and and the emotions that are in the room I hope you guys understand what you guys are doing I understand that you guys got to close schools we get it right but at some point it feels like even between you guys are divided and you guys have a hidden agenda there's

135something else that's going on because some of the numbers that came don't don't make sense there's other schools that are with less percentages and they're remaining open and there are neighborhoods that are terrible for our kids and for our families so you you know you guys talk about transparency but everyone's confused there's no trust in you guys there's no trust and it part of that reason is because your past administrations have led to negative results thank you hello my name is Louise I representant 2 I wanted to say something really important that caught my eye in the last few years there's a question that has been uh in the air and I want to ask you guys maybe you guys can consider talking about it how come you guys are closing schools but what about

136the charter schools that are in your District how come they're not closing how come they're not going through what we're going through right now how come they claim they're better than us every time you speak with them they're like we're better than than regular schools then why are we keep having them what's the benefit of having those schools there this is not about who is better this is about education for all and I believe that you guys have the key so what are you guys are not doing nothing about it nobody's asking questions why they just went couple of months ago to renew their contract and guess what you guys sign it no questions ask but when we come to you guys and ask for questions you guys shut us down thank you guys good

137evening I'm Natalie Bal a parent of three and I was on the consolidation committee and I have to say it was you know the out of any committee it's the worst one to have to be on it was really sad um you know obviously we have to do what we have to do um we came to consensus and there were some things I I I don't feel deceived but you know in in hearing these things I feel like we need to be conscious that we need to move forward I think we need to really emphasize all the programs that we do have in alen rock we need to sell ourselves we need to Market ourselves we need to welcome all the kids coming in and even our kids that might be going to other schools

138we need to be not putting negative things like you're going to a school in a bad area or like oh these kids are coming from this school I think we really need to be conscious about what we're saying and we need to move forward and do a different alen Rock and leave what we've had in the past in the past and just move for the future thank you thank you good evening my name is Nikki Roa Fox and I am a parent of two children at Linda Vista Elementary School I am also the president of the PTA there and while I appreciate all 10 of you sitting up there my message is for the parents and the families I'm here to tell you today that our school suffered a lot when you if you get

139involved in your PTA you have an opportunity to have a voice and I encourage all of you to use that voice get involved in your school our former PTA president is here this evening too I'm not here in a school that's being shut down but what I'm here to do is to invite you to call pick up the phone call a school that is really passionate about being open and getting parents in the community we were having for many years six or seven people attending the meetings we're now at 30 and 40 these are not the only voices that matter they're voices that matter but they're not the only voices that matter so get involved in your schools and be a partner to one another thank you so that was the last speaker and if

140anybody else wants to do any comment you can please email your additional comments to us and we will review your comments thank you so moving on to comment1 we have to we have to ask questions at the administration on the proposal too Madam president okay so um I'm reminded that we didn't take uh truste comments on 701 so uh Mr trustee minam would you like to start first uh yeah oh boy okay uh let's see here so uh question number one to the administration uh you know I I I'm I have concerns about special education facilities uh I want to say I myself uh was a special education student you know I was a adaptive physical education student so I you know uh I share a you know in sense kindred spirit with the uh

141special education students at the district because they have uh additional needs uh that we have a responsibility to serve so uh it's to my knowledge the Lindale Elementary School campus has five classrooms with bathrooms given that they Service uh our autism program uh question to the administration is moving them to S does s does the San Antonio site have comparable facilities uh for our AR for our autism students any other trusty comment let me he's asking a question so uh Mr freus we're talking about the restrooms at Lucha can you please come up and uh I'm gonna ask Mr uh freus the chief interim Chief uh bonds um off sort to discuss the facilities at Lucha which is by San Antonio oh you're you're talking about you say Lindo can you repeat the question trusty

142fam you know if if you know so I'll par if moving the the Lindale a program to the San Antonio site does the San Antonio site have the comparable uh classrooms with bathrooms for the autism program good evening uh trusty fam the answer is it would need minimal um improvements for that accommodation um in terms of of comparisons to some of the other schools because Lucha already has um um kinder TKS uh and space available um with restroom facilities attached to them the improvements would be on a on a minimal scale and achievable within the time frame of next school year can you can you also U Mr freus can you also talk about just give specifics as to the improvements that those rooms would need some of those uh when I say minimal it's

143it's a doorway passed through from an existing restroom into the classroom the adjoining classroom to the restroom so that's what I mean by minimal we wouldn't have to um build out a new restroom or or facility um the Kinder uh and um uh Primary School um playgrounds are already in place um so it has a lot of infrastructure already that would accommodate the uh special needs kids uh supplement okay supplemental question then uh to Mr freedus uh minimal preparation how how long are we talking about well the sooner we have a decision the sooner we can Implement that program but something for in that scope that we've been looking at and and considering is probably in the neighborhood of several months from the time frame We Begin uh say at the end of December that

144leaves me with some trepidation here because again autistic kids are you know again the most you know their needs are the most sensitive uh and as well as you know to borrow a term uh very vulnerable so it you know that gives me cause for some trepidation there um May I add trusty fam the classrooms would be ready for next school year 25 26 school year and so they would be ready for the transition the classrooms would be ready for the students okay thank you a second question to the administration uh in regards to uh to the Pender consolidation and I I want to reference that you and I did speak about this in our one and one uh you know I think uh Fair of valid concern is uh though there's a logical way

145for grades three to five to be uh accommodated in a part of shepherd with you know uh that would need sufficient separation uh you know what kind of separation would we be talking about in order to maintain some separation for grades 3 to five and the Middle School population go ahead Mark yeah so that campus is already sharing some of the like the multi-purpose room so that separation is already in place um it's a it's a matter of the administrative uh savings that that that consolidation brings to to rather than closing a school we're able to consolidate but that that existing separation is there okay um following up on that uh what a you know you know I want to you know will the district ensure that there's sufficient space still on on the painter

146site for grades TK through 2 who would need you know separate you know bathrooms separate from the shepherd side as well as access to the playground and the separate administrative and health Suite because again ele elementary kids have separate Health you know separate health and safety needs from middle school kids correct go ahead Mark yes that's uh that's a very good point trusty fam and those those facilities are in place already we are serving our TKS our Kinders in that so it's it's a matter of in terms of consolidation it's really on the administrative oversight that we're we're in uh benefiting from that consolidation um so the campuses would still be utilized as as necessary to serve those specific age groups any third question to the administration uh regarding aptitude uh there is a Wellness

147Center at aptitude so if aptitude were to close you know uh where would we you know uh is there something comparable that could be offered to those students at uh at the receiving site I'll ask us this superintendent uh Senator to speak to that that question I'm sorry good good evening we do have uh grants for wellness centers at our k8s and middle schools so the receiving school would have the um Wellness Center to serve the students that are being served at aptitude at this time okay okay uh but the question is when we lose the the grant specific for aptitude we would lose um next year's grant funding um but we wouldn't we would not lose well we we've already used the grant for this year can you give the amount um I don't

148have that is Ona we can get the amount for you as well oh Anya yeah uh and then for now the last question to uh to the administration regarding Renaissance at fiser uh you know the closure of Renaissance at fiser would would red you know the district would lose One Verizon lab uh one science classroom uh one athletic field and as well as one you know uh expanded cafeteria and stage area uh and it seems like there's no clear you know at you know in this iteration uh of your of the administration's proposal uh it almost seems like all you know the closer of Fisher would leave a huge huge gap in terms of facility uh amenities available to uh Alam Rock students uh you know uh what is the ad you know has the

149administration how has the administration thought about uh replacing those amenities which uh you know realistically I don't see the district re replacing those facilities uh in the medium term yes and and F Fisher if you look at the Deferred maintenance yes it's it's one of the most expensive uh schools to uh you know to actually invest some of our bond dollars so it would be very expensive for our districts as far as the Verizon lab yes we would lose that um um and so but those students one of the recommendations is that we're recommending that those students uh you were hoping we encouraging that they would attend the Matson campus as far as the facilities Mark can you at what since we have Dr just to give you the amount for the previous question can

150you I'm sorry can I just ask for a repeat of the previous question I'm a little under the weather so I'm just I'm I'm just asking you know in term the closure of Fisher would lose a Verizon learning lab that's a different question you let me just the the amount what's the dollar amount we would lose for the wellness center okay the wellness center the wellness center so in terms of dollar amount I just want to clarify that the funding for the wellness center at optitude is actually through a skoy Consortium Grant so we don't receive any of those monies they receive the money right so I just want to be very clear about that um and the monies were written through uh Community Schools Grant so if we're looking at it from that angle

151it's probably between 200 $50 to $300,000 that is part of the Consortium but again we weren't we're not receiving any funding from them what we are receiving is the services through the clinician as well as the liaison for aptitude because that was done through a different Grant through scoy okay thank thank you thank you and then back to the Fisher I'll I'll ask uh assistant superintendent Garcia to speak to that as well and then Mark you can add in term of the Verizon Labs um we could um look at what we can bring over to um either Renaissance at Matson or used to enhance the um labs in the um steam Academy at Okala as well um to see what we can um bring for the students so that they can continue to utilize um

152these um resources in terms of the uh deferred maintenance uh it's a sizable amount that that is significant and it was one of the considerations in evaluating all the different middle schools um so uh there's a an immediate Savings in terms of the necessary dollars that we need to spend right now as well as those dollars over a two to 20 year period so okay so uh you know I'll use my time at this moment for other trustees to have questions and comments but Madam president you know I reserved a right to uh was it uh make further comments after other trustees have have gone and I know I've had my oneon-one with h superintendent um Haman uh so I'll save some of those questions but I'll add some additional questions that came up during

153during um the time I was listening to the community and I'll start off with um a aptitude uh being that it's a K through 8 model what schools um or are the schools that are closer to them are they also K through the option that they have the middle school students would be um moved to Renaissance at Madson and the the elementary students would um be moved to Ryan um with the option of also going to dorsa like so are any of those K through way no okay thank you for that answer um and then in regards to um trusty yes um we are going to be accepting intradistrict transfers so if um any of the aptitude students are interested in a ko8 they would be able to um receive an intradistrict to hubard which

154is a k k tk3 program thank you um in regards to lindel um the vapa programs that they have there would they be transferred to another school um what would happen to the baa programs so the good thing about bappa is that now that we have the prop 28 money we have an opportunity to expand vappa across the Allen Rock School District and so this is going to give us the opportunity to move um some of that programming to other elementary schools in our district and also expand on what we're already providing um in the vapa cluster so that more students in alumrock have the opportunity to have vapa programming it's it's actually the the prop 28 there's a formula the 70% right that the sites get per Ada and the 30 they're actually going

155to get more money at each of the school sites to to support the Arts what percent 70 for low socioeconomically disadvantaged students okay and then um I know that at lindel um it's one of our schools that um offer uh specific resources for our students in the special education programs um and so I know there is a specific question around the restroom but just all the other resources and services in special ed have we thought about where that would go and our students in special ed um would they move together I mean I know it disrupts I mean I know this is going to be a huge disruption for all of us and everybody involved in this community but I know that um our students who have special ed needs um how much that's even

156more exacerbated when this happens okay uh special ed um services are Guided by the students IEP and they're not um dependent on a specific site so um wherever the student attends school They will receive their services under their IEP um the other thing that our special ed department has already started looking at is um u a way of redesigning how we offer special ed programs in our district um at this time because our schools are so small um we don't have as many opportunity mainstreaming opportunities for our students in um some of our schools and so what this is going to give our district an opportunity to do is expand those opportunities for mainstreaming at all of our elementary and middle schools in our district so that we can provide um those opportunities for students

157in special ed to socialize and be part of the regular program during some part of their day the other thing is um the maximizing of resources that we now have to spread across 20 22 schools will now be able to um be used at the 13 schools that remain open and um the travel time will be cut for some of our staff that have to travel from one school to the other um and they'll be able to serve more students at the um the the number of schools that are left open um the other thing that I did want to mention is um because of the size of our schools at this time um we do do have our students mov some of our students moving um three times in their um TK through 8

158experience because we don't have um consistency in our special ed classroom so you may have one school that has um a first to third grade class and then for fourth and fifth they have to move to another school so what our special ed department is um looking at doing is putting classes at every school so that students have consistency from TK through fifth grade and then they move on to a middle school for their sixth through eighth grade program so this really gives us an opportunity to to redesign and to maximize the resources that our students are receiving I was just going to ask that that was my next question any transportation that is written into a student's IEP will continue um at their new school okay so any student that's receiving Transportation right now

159will continue absolutely okay um and then in regards to lindel still uh also has has it been um identified as one of our community schools and if so can that funding be moved uh so it is one of our schools that's receiving uh with the $12.3 million that we got they are a Community School uh funded School uh they would lose it uh but there is another cohort that Dr artiagas uh will be applying for for next year and so that's something we would take advantage of we are working with the county on that and so we would definitely look into securing additional funding for Community Schools okay let's see um do we know and and I I was trying to look for the number of the Renaissance U Academy at fiser how many in

160District inter district and intradistrict students at Fisher if we have that number and if you can look for that I'll yes I do that's 28 students 28 inter or intra inter okay can you say the uh difference of the two for inter is uh students coming from outside of the school district and asking to come to our school district intra is within our school district thank you so 28 int okay thank you um and [Music] then um painter Elementary how would the um mixing happen would it just be for example the SE 678 coming and I don't okay it just turn off um 678 coming to Shepherd or all the K through 8 what is the idea around that so those details are to be worked out but our thought is that since we have

161the um painter campus that we are going to reorganize it in a way that works for the students of course tk& K would need the restroom facilities and the tkk um classrooms um but we will look at moving the students um closer to the Shephard campus so that we can um use the cafeteria as well and also since we will have shared Administration it would provide that opportunity for administration to go between the the two um sites okay I I'll pause further for now thank you board president trusty fam do you wan to your comments thank you um just a couple um thank you to my colleagues for asking really great questions um Can the Raph cohort model um continue at Ram yes it can is that the plan that is something that we've been

162talking about yes continuing at Renaissance at mson okay um what is the plan for um connecting to our chronically absentee students and those lacking um housing access I don't think their voices are heard in this kind of venue and I just want to make sure we are understanding how we're connecting with them I think once the decision is made um we will definitely um need to look at who those students are um we do have a c two counselors one um that supports our mckin vento students one that supports our foster youth students we'll definitely get them and rs Department involved in providing um support to them and making sure that we're um doing doing case management with them to see what their needs are as well as our SLS um supervisors and our community

163lons so um once we have um the information we need to see which students will be impacted we will um begin to reach out to them it'll come back On's your teacher voice I I just wanted like we already have these uh links that we're going to need to figure out and the transportation issues and I think if we're already not um I think we just need to double down with that that population did you want to say I think that's what he oh got testing Tes yeah got it uh yes uh you know part of the plan is we're exploring well one we need to uh one of the the critical areas that we need to focus on is is focus on um supporting our you know our our foster homeless uh youth um

164but also reaching out there one of the things that I've done in my career that I I I think I've been very consistent is in conducting home visits and not only just having theal Department do that but also engaging parents the entire department at the district office the sites the principles in you know recovering our students because that's that's something something that's very important we need to know what supports they need why they're not showing up but the other thing that we're looking at is also um implementing and and uh assistant superintendent Teresa the cells is is also working with the uh with the transportation department we're fixing buses one there was one that that was broken I know we fixed that one one of our large buses but we're also looking at what's our

165inventory what's our capacity now that we're not spread out that thin what kind of transfer ation system or type of shuttle system can or or uh program can we set up so that it is transporting some of our students who need the transportation and early drop off I know has come up in some of the Town H Hall meetings that that I've had right we have the enrichment programs the uh after school programs the Extended Learning opportunity programs on the Grant and how do we support that and that would be through a Transportation uh possibly a shuttle stop type of program thank you um and I the last thing is not a um question it's more a comment sort of the the the two things that I'm not sure this well this board your board

166will have a lot of um opportunity to continue to highlight and work on the structural funding issues um you know know this this again this like decades long structural inequity where it's like we can't generate Revenue other than a Ada right and when Palo Alto and copertino don't want to share right don't want to be um Equitable right we are the victims of this structural inequity that um the cortezes the kaas the governors the Secretary of Education like I know we talk about it but lcff didn't do for us 10 years ago I'm sorry like I'm I I was here 10 years ago and I felt like we were like going to get there there was going to be some answer um and here we are here we are so um I I am think

167as I leave that we need to be talking about this um obviously solutions to these painful problems but one of them is reform just reform at at the core um because this this board can canot make money right we cannot make money and so um we have to rely on the state and I know you all have friends and so I think that's going to be one of their our bigger challenges so that we're not at this again and we you will hold at whatever number um we are left with with our schools and hopefully it's I won't say a number but um we have to hold so we're not at it again I I I just want to add to that the the funding part I would like uh to ask uh assistant superintendent

168uh to cells to talk a little bit more about the chronic absenteeism the way the Ada formula works because I think there's a some confusion around you know if students are enrolled at school then that's what you get when it comes to your funding and and that's not the formulas can you just explain that uh can you Mike please thank you because we're funded BAS on our Ada and so it's it's I just want to add Clarity on that because it it it's it's a big difference it it is very important to have our students come to school every day just for the education sake but in terms of funding if we have students that are not there on a Friday because the parents have taken them out on a long weekend we lose funding

169we are funded on the average daily attendance of our students that's what Ada stands for not the enrollment so when you are looking at the enrollment numbers we are not funded on that um so we are funded at two points in time P1 is the first Wednesday in October we will get those official numbers out it does take time to uh to figure that out um and we usually get that in January um and then P2 comes out in April and that's the number that we are are funded on so for right now we are funded on last year's P2 numbers and because we are in declining enrollment we are currently funded on the previous three years of ADA numbers which is helpful because we are declining an enrollment which means we get to use

170the average of the third year the second year and last year's numbers um so it is very important to make sure that our students come to school okay not just for the education but for the funding piece as well if we drop below 95% we are dinged for every single percentage that goes below the 95% so please make sure that your students come to school every day and and what percentage like approximate dollar amount can you give just an approximate dollar amount I know I'm putting you on the spot but if not we can get that information for you um I don't actually have those numbers we can get it for you but we're going to be adding it to the board report that way you have that information and so we'll work on that

171yes yes so instead of just giving you the enrollment numbers we will be giving you the average daily attendance numbers on a monthly basis oh my thank you Madame President so I guess with all I would like to close out this uh public hearing you know oh you want him to go and then you I don't want to close it off yeah let him make his comment and then you make yours okay okay no problem that's so you know on that note you know first of all you know this is a uh highly emotional time I have my own emotions uh you know I want to thank superintendent Serta and the administration for their efforts it's not an easy effort um uh you know though there may be disagreements I don't you know the issue

172I don't think the you know we disagree on the goals but we disagree on the means okay I want you know I I want to extend you know thank you to Mr Barbara for agreeing to to work with our district as facilitator uh with the school consolidation committee I want to thank uh those who served on the committee as well it's also uh you know not a pleasant task you know uh you know I'll be honest it almost feels like uh you know making decision to pull uh hold plug on Grandma here at the hospital right it kind of feels like that and I'm not you know I'm not going to uh sugarcoat the situation here so uh for the record you know pages one and two are missing from from my counter proposal so

173the thing is for uh for the next board meeting you know uh please include pages one and one and two there because you know we'll still have you know the next week's meeting will be focused on this but I think that it was important to at least Sunshine uh a counter proposal uh one that that takes into portions of the administration's recommendation portions of the committee's recommendations uh with an eye towards you know basically saving the best pieces of furniture in this district for our kids ensuring that there's enough schools in each geographical section in the North in the central in the South to protect programs uh like Vietnamese and Spanish dual language immersion and our media kids special education so uh using the framework and I I com commend the superintendent his administration for

174the framework of this right so you know there are some differences and I think you know uh this plan achieves some additional savings on top of on top of your proposal but using uh you know using the moving pieces of uh merger and redesign of schools it's Tech on paper you know one net less closure so I will you know put out my recommendation I will explain my reasoning to the people of alam Rock and I offer it to for the consideration of my colleagues on this board so uh school's recommendation for consolidation not closure I concur with uh Lucha Academy to be Consolidated with are colocated with San Antonio elementary with conditions using using the $712,000 figure so uh dollar amounts are based on uh figures provided by the administration in the board book

175so there should be no you know there is no surprise here so my reasoning Lucha is adjacent to San Antonio and consolidation retains the program into the same general location uh Lucha retains a CDE number and I want to make a explicit you know an explicit guarantee of uh administrative and staff separation and uh and autonomy from San Antonio due to their separate School cultures and instructional model uh I will concur in part with painter Elementary to be collocated in part with shepher middle with conditions you know the savings at $91,000 uh we must retain the pain painter site on the painter site the administrative and health office suite the bathrooms the playground access for uh all Vietnamese dual language Elementary grades and sufficient classrooms to accommodate all those in the Vietnamese dual language programs

176at g at grades tk2 through 2nd so must retain the separate painter CDE number and administrative staff separation and autonomy from Shephard middle due to again different needs at the elementary level and for Vietnamese language programs uh must it provide adequate separation for grades 3 to five using space and shepher uh the painter retains uh the existing separate Marquee for Vietnamese dual language Elementary business and to offer uh to those enrolled in the Standard English program uh the opportunity to either enroll at McCullum or Russo mckinty or uh offer uh those in great TK through first the option to enroll in Vietnamese immersion and remain at painter you know this is the horrible part here the schools recommended for closure right I I get it no one no one likes this part here but you

177know please bear with me but I think that this is you know this is the least worst option here uh Cassel Elementary then $932,452 you know the distance is 7/10 of a mile the reason my reasoning his aptitude has received additional Portables which can accommodate and increase population and retains the wellness center for student ye aptitude is also adjacent to Capitol Park and would allow students access to it uh Kon Elementary the savings at $856,000 the students would be merged to attend Lindale Elementary which is one mile and preserves Lindale as a second vapa school and preserves to specialize facilities for special education programs uh Meer Elementary the savings at 92,3 the student merged to attend Ryan Elementary at 1.8 miles uh Dorset Elementary the savings of 99,2 65 students merged to attend a restructured

178tk5 hubard media arts academy at 1.1 miles The Hub has expanded facilities and capacity for more students Hubbert has additional amenities such as the Verizon Innovative lab and soccer pitch and this pains me greatly and you know uh as a former Pala student George used to be the the the uh RI you know rival to Pala in there so you know this pains me you know there are no good choices here uh George middle the savings at 1,347 756 to offer the students either to choice to attend Shepherd or Renaissance at Matson uh vafa students may choose to vafa Visual and Performing Arts may choose to move to Renaissance at Matson to make use at the Allen Rock jazz band R right number six you know Renaissance at Fisher the savings is 1,420 441 the

179students merg with Renaissance at Madson to create one United Renaissance Academy movement is 2.1 miles students opting not to continue with the Renaissance model may choose to attend Okala so the schools recommended for redesign uh one the aptitute academy at GS re redesigned the tk5 the savings is approximately $200,000 and this is based on you know the general estimate presented by Mr CH you know then assistant superintendent uh Kira Chang and made you know where elementary schools tend to run at $900,000 and middle schools tend to run at 1.38 million I so uh altitude ecademy would view $200,000 in savings uh so it would receive the grades TK through 5 from Cassel but the grade 6 to8 merged with Okala middle which is 1.4 miles preserves the existing Wellness Center and larger facilities at aptitude

180and retains School access to the adjacent Capital Park uh hover media arts academy redesigned to a tk5 the SA savings is approximately $400,000 it would receive the tk5 from dorsa it has capacity to receive the entirety of dorsa with the existing larger facility and can preserve uh the piano lab from dorsa intact you know uh there's grade 6 to8 will merge with okal Okala midle which is at 1.7 miles um Chavez Early Learning Center would be redesigned a zero to preschool uh the TK and K would merge at San Antonio the savings is $5,610 sight for the district so here's the kicker the schools recommended for consolidation and relocation the adante 1 and two Spanish dual language cies consolidate as a single anal Academy and relocates to the former Renaissance at fiser school site the

181savings is uh 1.2 1,233 two and this is based off of you know running you know using solely the adalante 1 budget and you know the consolidation of adalante 2 both adalante 1 and two have a common history having started at the adalante one site it retains the TK through 8 model it preserves the Verizon lab the athletic field the locker rooms the science lab classroom the soccer pitch the modernized music room and the larger cafeteria and Stage facilities it does provide improved facilities for the Middle grades which still some room for growth through recruitment as a program of choice it maintains School access to the adjacent readed hillville Ranch Library adalante 1 and Adel moves adalante 1 1.5 miles and out of Lund 2 1.2 miles to a site that is at the midpoint

182of both existing sites and given the uh specialized facilities uh when not in use by anol lante the athletic field the Verizon lab the science lab classroom the cafeteria and Stage facility and music room should be made available for use by other arusd schools on a reservation basis and have needed TK and K classes could be temporary located at the former Meer Elementary for a one-year transitional period uh you know given the concerns expressed through constituent email about special education I do want to include in this counter proposal a explicit guarantee of special education in all arusd schools unless student placement requires a move to another District school or out of District placement all AR USD schools are to provide access to special education classes for enrolled students in addition arusd reaffirms its commitment to

183provide for appropriate opportunities for mainstreaming at all arusd School sites for existing laws in the students IEP so the net savings based on the calculations provided by the administration per school this proposal produces an upfront Savings of approximately 10,29 $ 4,687 uh this is an additional upfront Savings of approximately $ 68,7 2016 from the administration's proposal while protecting special programs amenities that are unlikely to be timely replaced in the medium term and ensuring quality facilities for special education and I wanted to make one note regarding uh the you know compare you know I understand the Renaissance at Fisher facility does have uh significant long-term uh deferred maintenance costs but going back to the figures uh the combined long-term maintenance cost for the current alante one and two sites add up to $12.8 million and there's

184an additional combined immediate repair needs of approximately $350,000 so um the C the long the Deferred maintenance and the short-term repair costs are comparable uh but you know my belief is preserving the Renaissance at fiser site as an active AR USD site preserves the special facilities again that are not likely to be uh replaced in a timely manner in the medium term by this District uh I so I propose that uh the list of active schools at the tk5 level lendon McCullum rouso maganty San Antonio Lucha Lindale aptitude Hub Ryan and painter three middle schools Shephard Renaissance at you know Renaissance at Matson to take you know and to inherit uh you know using the alen rock jazz band room to take in the vapa middle school program from George and Okala a tk8 Spanish

185dual immersion uh a single adalante Academy at the old fiser site or at the current Renaissance at fiser site and one Early Learning Center operated by kadango with arusd site supervision so I presented you know for consideration by my colleagues and also for consider you know at the end of the day wider consideration by the people of alam Rock who you know at the end of they will provide the final judgment for all of us on this board so uh may I uh and I know uh vice president uh kto you haven't had an opportunity to speak to this but uh since we got this this proposal early this morning I apologize first and foremost for the copies they were not double-sided and so I'll make sure that that's uh corrected and will upload it

186uh for the informational meeting uh we did run some of the numbers preliminary numbers um for the uh the impact this would have your proposal would have on students and it would actually increase it by 600 students to 3,400 and so and some of the cost uh we actually costed some of it out not all of it but I think this is maybe for another meeting for the information meeting I can come back um at the next informational meeting but it looks like it would cost uh approximately six or S million more dollars to go with that plan but we can cost it out for you and bring it back to the board uh and and then you can go ahead then you know decide on what the next steps would be after that but

187we'll cost it out for you uh for the next it's uh 3 do you have the numbers Ascend it's 3,457 students 3,457 students 28 15 15 all right um so um thank you all for being here um this is a very difficult process has been already stated um and I had no illusions that we were going to figure out some magical way of making everybody happy while we're half the schools are being considered to be shut down uh we went through this process throughout the course of my time here on the board in a different way when adalante was out growing and was at the Rogers campus we had tension and eventually they overtook the campus and um we had to make a tough decision instead of allowing people to be phased out we we

188closed it and there was a lot of anger a lot of and as expected parents had a right to be upset that their neighborhood school was no longer going to be there and they felt that they didn't have access to that school same thing with aricle uh when a school that was in Decline enrollment and we took action to preserve reserve the site by bringing in uh a school that would bring in um increased enrollment we we went ahead and Consolidated Matson and and Fisher sites and the same thing we got uh me folks coming out very upset and so I did not expect anything different at this time um over the course of my time on the board uh we faced some significant challenges declining enrollment uh we I I came on to this

189board saying I will not close one school I'm G to fight this we're going to we're going to push back and we're going to make sure that we figure out how to turn this ship around um the reality has set in and the fact is that we we are the the target of charter schools in Santa clar County uh with the oversaturation of charter schools that have impacted us and in addition a significant amount of students had took off after covid and did not come back because they realistically found a better a cheaper place to live in the valley many students took off other places and so all those things have impacted us if we could snap our fingers and figure out how to resolve them and fix them we would but we can't 1972

190the Supreme Court and His Infinite Wisdom put in place in law the ability to discriminate from one student from one part of the county to another by making it legal for the State of Texas San Antonio B Rodriguez to say it's okay for you to have uh worse off school sites than your neighbors over here because you guys don't have the same amount of money and so I understand the anger the frustration we need to understand the underlying reasons uh that have been caused by folks who are way above our pay grade we are responding to what has been given to us I will not apologize for the fact that Alam Rock has with the resources that we have had attempted and has given a quality and dignified education to our students many of our

191neighbors have chosen to go away from music programs instead they contract out with a nonprofit who comes around and and has the kids play a kazoo for for 15 minutes a week or whatever it is whoever signs up for it Alan Rock hasn't our Sports programs are still in place and I will not go back and turn if I could back and turn back the clock and and cheat our students out of those opportunities I will not because I think our students deserve it we're facing this situation now and uh we're gonna I'm Gonna Stand by the decision that the board's going to make uh it's a tough decision but it has to be made and I think that at the end of the day we'll be able to come back continue to provide the

192music programs the Arts programs the sports that many of our neighbors even our own Traditional School District some of whom are reaching out to our parents asking them to take their kids out of alrock and take them to their take them there it's getting pretty rough it's getting pretty rough when Traditional School districts are going out there and competing against each other and so for that I will not apologize I I think it's a right direction to provide our kids a quality and dignified education to the best of our abilities and we have um I'm going to continue to advocate for that when we are leaner we will have the resources to be able to do it and have it not be a sacrifice um to to each and every one of you that came

193out and spoke thank you this is exactly what we expected this is what we needed this is what we wanted your input uh regardless of what your position is on the issue um it it's exactly what we as a board need and this is the venue where we need where we need to take your input uh and Factor it in once we make a decision so for that I'm very appreciative it would be incredibly sad if we had showed up to this meeting nobody was here it would be a sign of uh a disengaged board or people who don't care their about their Community you clearly do care and for that I thank you each and every one of you who've been here to advocate for your schools to advocate for your childrenas thank you

194all [Music] Ro thank you madam president you know uh know I have a question to the administration because uh you know Mr uh Mr s's response you mentioned that um you know my counter proposal you know would cost $6 million more dollars but I guess the issue is um uh you know what we're not going into too much detail you know given that this is a public hearing the public does have a right to know the issue is uh from where do you derive $6 million because it certainly isn't printed in the board book so Mark can you uh I'm gonna ask uh our interim Chief uh bonds officer to speak to that to and then uh I'll ask assistant superintendent Dells to also uh speak to that a question good evening trustees um as

195superintendent Serta mentioned um we've already began analyzing some of that information and suggestions and recommendations that you put together we contracted with one of our service providers a professional architect to give us an evaluation a very preliminary evaluation but of combining both adalante 1 and Adelante 2 to the Renaissance Fisher campus and he identified several factors that are driving that cost of approximately $6.5 million um most is related to um the required re remodern ising our classrooms uh to be for TK K uh level students we'd have to modify our restrooms we'd have to change the Cabinetry to be at a lower height um in addition it triggers Ada improvements um so that was his analysis and that came in um at 6. 492,000 or 66 and A5 million doar as is a round figure

196to implement the second item is we would have to utilize many of the class rooms that you mentioned the stem the Verizon Center we need those 30 classrooms in order to collapse those two school to accommodate three TKS three Kinder rooms um so we would have to utilize some of those existing infrastructure to accommodate the extra students and third the other item is he gave us a timeline uh if we were to begin in mid in mid December uh the process would take us uh the school would not be ready for accommodation until July of 2026 the first five months would be the design phase the next four months would go to the division of State architect and that uh takes approximately four months uh from there we would go into bid approval process for

197hiring a contractor that take about two months to bring them on board have the board approve that contract and then starting construction in January of 2026 and completing that um that construction in July of 2026 so those are some of the preliminary uh things we looked at in terms of collapsing those uh adantes into Renaissance Fisher and this was done by Finny Architects uh trust vice president kto next um apologies for not including this in my previous comments but I'd like to point out that uh we do have a trustee elect uh Minn here in the back and so um just wanted to make sure that I identify him for you all you can go after him no I'm just kidding just kidding so uh I I just um I want to acknowledge um truste

198uh fam's um attempt and what I would feel way more comfortable with because this happened back in June um I'd be much more comfortable with um you know give instead of your own analysis that there's either you D you say what is the because we had a lot of people say save X school but then what's the Y school that needs to be the the alternative right so if you're asking for ex school um to be saved and why School took to be the alternative to be cut and then direct the administration to come back with analysis based on the existing analysis because that I just want to be really transparent that I want to take your proposal seriously but I'd rather have the administration do the analysis and so I just really want to

199understand the process for um so that we're all discussing the same numbers because when we're talking about different numbers it puts us in a real bind and then these folks think we can't trust anybody so I just want I think process is clearly something that we need to be really clear on tonight but I'm I'm just want to say um you have a it's a great attempt but then when the numbers don't pencil out then it's really hard to make a decision off that so I would rather have it be their numbers and your school idea um and then we can have a fair we can have the same conversation I hav't so um I'll let you go and then I I'll speak go ahead go ahead uh I was just going to say um

200in addition to that um you know I'm looking at these numbers and you know I can't help but to think what was presented to us to us was 20 million million and these numbers whether we're looking at uh men's proposal superintendence it's approximately 10 right so we get to work together you know and so I appreciate also thank you um trusty Flor Shelton for bringing that up because I do appreciate you know men looking at you know what other possibilities and I think um our audience said it best we need to come together you know we could disagree but this is a time to really come together because at the core of all this as we've said over and over is our children the children that our teachers get to teach every day day in

201day out and I know you love love them otherwise you wouldn't show up and of course as parents as a parent here in this District you know I mean I don't even have to say you know those those of us that are parents so let's just think about that as we move forward because you know even though we go through this tough we're going to go through this you know December 2nd we're going to need to make some tough decisions whether it's a mix of mens and you know what the superintendent presented or whatever it is it will be and it's going to be tough and somebody will be unhappy and we get to look at another 10 million in the near future and hopefully we get to do that together and having experience this

202today um you know it's not going to be pretty but it could at least be a idea and and a way that we all move forward and I love the idea of coming together of going to the state of calling our friends pesi oshara all of the others and coming together you know especially those of us that might not have seen eye to eye this is really an opportunity to come together so I look forward you know uh you know I look forward to meeting our new trustee coming up you know as uh one of the trustees that was also elected to work together um and really you know test our our love for Alam Rock and our children and families here thank you okay so now um I think I'm going to just speak

203i' I think I've allowed everybody multiple times to speak so so I'm going to do this last one um I want to thank you all for being here it's not easy having to run the meeting as TimeWise as proficient as it should be but it's needs to be done and you can always if you have additional comments you can always send those to the board we do look at all of them we do listen and we do uh take that into account um the problem is again the money the money it's always been the M money because of the fact that when they 10 years ago they used to fund the children at 10,000 88 per student and they were funding the jails at 150 per prisoner so they have that in Reverse we have

204to go to the state we have to make sure that they know you can't do this to families anymore you can't do this to the children anymore because the families are paying the price the children's their education is paying the price through all this where here we didn't ask for this as far as them underfunding us year after year but it has to be done I've gone to so many schoolside visits along with men and the children are asking can I you know can you get us water can you get us drinking water do you know how sad that is when I went to school after school after school and they didn't have any and the children are just like when are you going to get assist and I look at the fields there's not

205enough money to take care of everything so to me I feel like we're doing a disservice the most to the children because we're not we don't have the money but we also know that we have to consolidate schools to make the learning better for them so that's what I signed up for to make the student learning the best that it could be and you know what we have so many great programs here and I want them to continue but they can't continue with the amount of money that we're getting today so um thank you than you all for being here thank you all for listening to everybody's comments please be patient um I keep asking everybody to be patient because it's not over and it's also an opportunity for alen rock to finally um consolidate

206these schools and bring the children what they really need and I know nobody likes to hear that um we're going to close qu and sell them we're not selling properties and I want to get that straight and so what we got when we did close Pala and we did um allow them to put the uh their schools on our Pro on our properties we get $634,000 a year and over a 10-year period that adds up so we could be doing the same thing with other sites it doesn't have to be to Charters it can be for other things but remember we do have to cut now but we also have to look into who's going to give us the most money and we have to really look at those leases and be open to uh

207the next 50 years not like it said in the book 99 years I don't I don't think that we should do an Outlook that far out but I do believe that we need to all stick together because we're all alen rock we're all you guys are here these teachers these parents because you care about the students you could go anywhere but you're here in Alan mark because you want to be here with these students and they're very special to you very special to me and to the board and to all of us and we have a great Administration that has been working really hard trying to make things happen um and I thank you for that and also we have bigmat there's Mr Donald ziming there in the corner and his and the other one

208forgive me I forgot your name right now but I'm working under the weather right now so uh I want to thank you all and and if you have any comments like I said just send them to the board thank you uh President Chavez uh could I ask to table one of the items what item is that and it would be the uh Tera realy advisers it's 8.02 and I can move it for next week okay and we're also going to table 8.01 okay okay so both of those items 801 Miss marel and 802 will be tabled for the next meeting and so right now it is 904 and I'm going going to close the public meeting at this time and recess we will go to close session after a 10-minute break and you're gonna say

209something I oh yeah I was on to ask for a 10minute break okay so we will resume uh into close session at 9:15 okay how about that oh yeah Madam we do have to take make an announcement and take public comments on close session items okay um really quick um since we're going to go into close session uh so does anybody have a does any of the public have any comments on the items in closed session ask superintendent to uh excuse me superintendent we have a question for you what did you say sorry please please announce the items to be discussed in close session please announce the items to be discussed in Clos session and then we will take public comment if there's any if there none we will go to close session go ahead

210please the items for a closed session uh will be the uh the following um conference with legal council anticipated litigation uh there are significant exposure to litigation pursuing to paragraph two or three subdivision D of section 54956.9 four potential cases there's also 3.04 conference with vagle Council anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation pursuing to government code section 54956.9 subdivision D2 one potential matter student number 420 36918 there's 3.05 conference with legal council existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9 subdivision D1 one matter OHA case number 202 49816 and then conference uh 3.06 conference with legal council existing litigation paragraph 1 subdivision D of section 54956.9 J do 1 Ed Al versus alrock Union School District Ed Al Santa Clara County Superior Court case number 23 CV 42087 Jane a y do do by and

211through her guardian Ed Lam John doublea Al do versus alumrock Union School District Ed Al Santa clar County Superior Court case number 24c CV 42976 and then Jane Dov alumrock Union School District at L Santa clar County Superior uh court case number 24c V4 35022 Jane ahk do Ed Al versus alrock Union School District Ed Al Santa clar County Superior Court case number 24 CV 441 079 Jane do ew versus alrock Union School District at AL C car County uh case 22cv 47905 Jane Row one Jane Row 2 Jane Row 3 versus alrock Union School ele school district and Santa CL um Santa clar Superior Court Consolidated case number 22cv 49107 Jane do says alrock Union School District think together and New Hope for Youth Santa claro County court case number 24c V 449 309

212and there is no 3.07 um there's no 3.08 conference with the that no with labor negotiators employee organization CCA we don't have that one 3.09 U we don't have that one either as well okay and that's it all thank you go ahead confused are you not doing negoti uh discussing labor negotiations in close session not in close session okay so it was put on the agenda by accident yes okay all right so no comment from the public public okay so we will go to we will now be going uh to take a break first it's it's 9:08 uh let's say we'll resume and close session at 9:20 okay e e e can you hear me lelle Danielle can you hear me marel can you hear me can you try to talk I can hear you

213you can't hear me can you hear me can you try to talk I'm I'm talking can you hear me let me see you keep talking okay all righty Danielle one two three 4 Danielle can you hear me can you hear me Danielle Danielle oh I can't hear you not yet or at least not through the sound system yeah I wonder what's going on how about now M you hear me no man you hear me Danielle can you hear me no I'm trying to see if I can hear you through the [Music] speakers testing testing one two can you hear me I hear you through my computer but not the the speaker system [Music] maybe something wrong with the speakers can you hear me Danielle I think it doesn't work okay no Mar can you keep

214talking Mar so it doesn't work huh it doesn't work huh just keep talking Mar okay one two three four one two three four two three four one two three four one two three Mar one two 3 testing one two three test one two [Music] ask [Music] testing one two three four one two three four one two three 4 One Two Three 4 Mar you want try Maro can you talk two three four one three four can you talk Maran close session can you hear me can you hear me one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three 4 one two three four good you hear me Danielle no not yet I think it's not working huh can you talk again marel can you hear me one two three can

215you can you keep talking marel hey one two three hey Danielle one two three one two three 4 One Two Three 4 One Two 3 four testing one two three 4 one two three four one two three four we're gonna talk through the through the microphones might but can you hear us yeah I can hear you guys well no I was talking through my laptop but I need uh I'm going to talk in through the podium mic oh okay but you can hear me right can you hear me can you keep talking Mar one two three 4 one two three four one two three four one two three 4 one two three four can you one two three 4 testing one two three 4 one two three four one two three 4 testing testing one

216two can you hear me one two one two for e there we go okay so now it's can you hear me marel can you hear me I can hear you testing one two marel can you hear me I can hear you can you hear me can you hear me yes marabo we can hear you now finally cool I'm gonna mute your mic sounds good oh I can actually just turn all the mics down marel okay sounds good but it's still muted oh well oh you're unmuted it that's cool e e e we're back um Mr uh superintendent s can you please report out what happened in close section I will do thank you uh president Chavis uh for U agenda item close close session agenda item 3.04 conference with Le uh with legal council anticipated

217litigation significant exposure to litigation to government code section 54956.9 subdivision D2 one potential matter student number 420 36918 the Board of Trustees um approved uh in a unanimous decision 5 to Z and also for conference with legal councel existing litigation uh this is for case uh 24c 449 309 the Board of Trustees voted 5 uh oh that was it sorry about that and then the other the other one I'm sorry about that that was a different one and then I'll turn this over to uh assistant superintendent uh too for the next agenda item yes okay it was just delayed um thank you thank you superintendent s uh item 3.10 on on a motion from trustee Flores Shelton seconded by trustee era Lera uh the board unanimously approved the separation agreement of a certificated employee uh

218there are no more items to report from Clos session thank you so we'll be moving on to the uh 501 presentation from fmat physical health risk analysis report uh there's a PowerPoint provided to the district is that is that up yet e Andy you need the the report yes oh than I didn't remember thats you just volunteered yourself to turn and our woman anytime you say something it's like the yellow sign can't see that far okay they put a sign it's too bad then I'm in trouble oh somebody just came out okay hi uh good evening how are you guys doing probably a bad question to ask hopefully you're having a good evening tonight um uh my name is Marcus forwick I'm with fcmat uh fmat stands for fiscal crisis and management assistance team uh

219I'm here to to do a review of the recent fiscal health risk analysis and I'll kind of get into that a little bit here tonight so who is fmat uh I refer I'm Not Gon to say fiscal crisis management we always refer to as fmat we've heard fcm or fcmc or something like that as my mom continuously tells me um but who are we we are a uh a public agency uh created in 1992 when the first school district went bankrupt in the state of California and so really what our agency does is we assist school districts public California school districts community colleges as well as public charter schools on um operational issues fiscal issues insolvency issues uh fraud investigations and then a lot of it is a professional development as well of best practices

220and so on and so forth um our administrative agent is current County Superintendent of Schools uh which is in Baker field I don't live in Bakersfield all of our fcmat staff live throughout the state of California uh so I actually live over in the Central Valley um and so my commute home will be easy tonight not like normal commutes so um so what what we we here for we were here to conduct our fiscal health risk analysis or what you'll hear me refer to it as as an FH um and then from there we will go over the level of insolvency that the district uh is at based off off of that analysis um this report will mainly highlight uh uh our result of our current fiscal health risk analysis and then compare what was

221done back in 2020 as a kind of like a a a point in time for comparison purposes to see how well or how if things are improving and so on and so forth so we were here at the district visit the district onsite myself and a colleague on uh in August uh late August 27 to 28th uh we interviewed primarily it's your business department staff but that also includes your facilities your bonds um uh other cabinet members as well as uh principles and and so on your management staff if you will um during those interviews we we are asking specific questions related to process and procedures uh part of our document list that we also hand the district is about a little over th I think I counted at 1,45 documents at provided to us

222so it's it's it's a it's a heavy task to get all this information to us thank you to Teresa and her staff I think the week that we were there was also uh C's last week um the physical health risk analysis is it focuses on processes and procedures so what's are things being done well and correctly within the business department within the organization uh and so on and so that's what we typically uh look at we report on what's not not working well or what you're not doing so with that said it's like a deficit model report um it's kind of bad news I mean without putting it bluntly like that uh we're looking for problems or looking for issues that are concerns that that we see that should be reported out so specific to

223the FH um we take a look at 20 different areas within a school district and those 20 areas are specific areas that we have found over the course of our 30 years uh uh excuse me yeah 30 years in in working with school district are common areas where we've seen school districts experience a level of a higher level of insolvency or risk so position control special Leed auditing um leadership and stability and so on and so these when we go into districts that they're they're having fiscal problems these are 20 CR these are these 20 sections are just the common ones that we have seen each question uh there's about 100 32 questions they're all yes no uh yes is a good thing we typically don't report on things that you're doing well uh a

224no is is not great uh meaning that there wasn't evidence provided to us or demonstrated through either the interview process the County Office of Education or interviews with staff that indicate that things weren't uh occurring or happening then ultimately what's come what what happens with that is a score is developed uh with your level of risk now just because you have a high moderate or low risk doesn't necessarily mean you truly have a high moderate or low risk you could have a higher risk but a but a higher level of insolvency or a low level of insolvency conversely you could have a low risk and a high level of insolvency does that make sense I'm I'm looking at you so let me repeat that again we're focusing on systems and process you could have good

225systems and process in place so your overall risk could be low but there could be other factors that could lead to a high a higher risk of insolvency that better to explain that that way okay so so for example there's a question on collective bargaining right that's easy we're we're we're a people business right 85 to 95% of the the district's budget is uh uh towards personnel if your position control is not intact your overall risk could be low but if you're not monitoring your people correctly that that could quickly lead you to insolvency we were at a district where uh they had no idea the true number of certificated and classified employees nobody knew what that number was and and so for us you know maybe they have great systems in process police but

226if they're not monitoring their position control correctly that that's a problem that wasn't the case here uh and and so on so we were triggered tried so so then on top of that when a a triggered fiscal health or a triggered FH rate occurs it's when the county superintendent there's some criteria where the County Office of Education will issue a a a trigger or a higher level of risk which then automatically would potentially bring us in that could be a disapproved budget a negative interim report certification three consecutive qualified interim report certifications a downgrade of an interim certification by the county superintendent and or a lack ofo concern designation by the county superintendent we were brought in for SEC 2324 second interim because the county downgraded your interim certification uh um for that and so

227therefore they reached out to us because sometime had passed since our last FH they asked us to come back in here to do another fiscal health risk analysis everybody following me so far okay if you guys have if you have questions please please raise your hand or or interrupt me um we've all anytime a district is triggered where we come in it's designated as an automatic higher risk so there's reasons why you know I just explained the reasons why the county office would would bring us in or a trigger as to what that could be doesn't matter what your score is it's an automatic highrisk okay and you'll you'll understand as I get a little bit further um the district score from this this current report was 24.7% right so in reality if you look

228at it it's it's a low risk in terms of your process processes and systems in place within the business department and and the uh uh the district as a whole it's fairly low but due to that trigger right we have to call it a higher risk right because of the trigger um the services that we provided as we came in are free of cost right that's part of our state allocation that FM receives from the Department of Finance so this is no charge to you uh when there's a trigger this is our effort to work with leas to ensure that hey do you know that there are some potential issues here are those issues that that may occur for you as the board to make some decisions you know uh and so on so some

229of the areas that I wanted to talk about are uh these these six areas were more or less the highest the highest scores in your risk of the eight of the 20 sections two of them are highlight deficit spending in your unrestricted general fund as well as your special ed uh section 20 um tonight's tonight I will focus on mainly on your the reason for the deficit spending your special ed and then there's going to be a comparison as to what your 2020 results are to your 2024 results so you can kind of see in this case there was actually an improvement in the score right your your actual risk percentage was low it's still high risk but again there's better systems and processes in place to designate that lower score uh in speaking with

230the county office they also did want me to to mention at least there's some contingent liabilities out there um in terms of a recent law that was passed AB I believe it was ab218 uh uh where open up the door for claims against the district for inappropriate conduct with with staff this is not just to uh this is consistent with a lot of districts that we're dealing with throughout the state so this is not something that just with alumrock but it is a concern um in terms of the systems process in place I mean you did get a no on that because you know the the district did disclose to us that they have uh some concerns but in terms of the dollar amount no one really knows what that dollar amount really is as

231to what that impact would be I think the county office just wanted me to mention that to you so at least you're you're aware of that so two of the bigger issues um we talked about how overall you've got right you have the district has great functions and processes in place outside the trigger again your risk is overall it's it's fairly low but I wanted to focus on I think really which was consistent with tonight is is your enrollment um and this is really due to your deficit spending so typically when we take a look at our fiscal health risk analysis it's based off of what the trigger interim reporting period so in your case it would be second 23 24 second interim and then we take a look at that reporting period and we

232go back to years years right and then it's kind of like a snapshot in time in this case and speaking to um our CEO I kind of wanted to tell a little bit more of a whole of a larger story here in terms of your enrollment because enrollment directly impacts as as you guys all well know your your funding uh and so on and so from 23 24 I went back two decades uh your enrollment at that point was was a little under 14,000 if I actually go back into the late 90s it's closer to 16,000 so it really gives you an idea of how how your enrollment has declined over the last couple years how does that um and oh and when I'm talking about enrollment I'm actually removing the charter schools from these

233calculations and so on so so it's it's strictly allum Rock's Charter Schools or excuse me allm rocks students why this plays into it is due to your facilities and I'm hoping this is in the report um and I'm hoping that you'll be able to see this okay so I pulled some in for from a facilities master plan that was part of our document request and um I was able to pull total capacity at the school sites in terms of the students that that you could house at each of the school sites uh roughly 177,000 last year's data uh for enrollment was 7,362 students which your that means your enrollment capacity or your your site usage on average was about 43% um at the time of our field work and based off of 20 on second

234interum your projected students for this coming year we're 6,800 uh and speaking with with Teresa that it's actually quite higher which is actually a good thing uh so so take a win when you can um but that still doesn't negate the fact that the facilities the facilities are the cost to maintain facilities is putting a significant strain on your budget um so out of the report you'll see that we we recommended you know for you to develop budget balancing techniques whatever that may be and and and go on from there any questions on this information so far okay next uh a a major function or a concern that we we pointed out was your cost of special ed so here's here's some charts here in terms of your um the cost that your unrestricted general

235fund and how much they contribute to your special ed program now we we all understand and I hope you understand that specialed is grossly underfunded we we understand that we we get that I think the concern is the the how rapid your contribution to special ed is growing and is putting a strain on your unrestricted general fund so as of 2324 of your total unrestricted general fund dollars 23% of that is automatically going to special ed that's that's a that's a lot of money so and and costs are just increasing more so that's something that you need to that that as we're looking at these numbers it's high it's really really high in terms of that we didn't get into the processes as to why or anything of that in fact we had some recommendations

236for for Teresa and that time it was the inim superintendent as to to dive deeper into that yes so just from like Statewide benchmarking is this like a Bay Area phenomenon is this uh you know in terms of the cost yes right um and my second question is if the Department of Education is eliminated at the federal level does that impact this that is a great question which I do not have the answer for that on your second question in terms of you asked a the to go back to your first question in terms of your state what's the state level so we did some historical information here so now on the total cost is your total cost per special ed right on that column uh where it says total cost then we have the

237contribution from your unrestricted general fund to special ed so then you could see percentage of contribution of total cost so for and I'm going to go to uh 2223 because that is the most recent data so your percent of contribution of total cost was about 81. 34% the Statewide average at that time was 56.5% so that kind of you know as we're looking at that that should open up your eyes as you are at that time um 30 plus percent greater than the Statewide average now this is a bigger issue too and we understand you know enrollments clining but our our student uh uh special education population is increasing we understand that but when you compare it Statewide that's a significant problem right in terms of what you're contributing to uh special ed so that

238was the other thing that we identified on that as the years progress again 24 I know we're in 24 25 but at the time of field work those were projections your projections for this year at 32 million and then the following year at 32 million we don't believe that that would be accurate because that's not consistent with the significant increases you've seen historically over the last couple years so to I mean to give you an idea to look at 2324 the total cost of special ed was $33 million of that $33 million the unrestricted general fund contributed 29 million 29.5 million of that and so um there are things for you that to consider as in terms of how to control some of those costs and so on I mean I starting from the board

239policy level and so on and so forth that that should assist that so question yes so you said that we should consider these things so does THM put out to the trustees the things that we should be implementing so that that way we could start you know working around little in of cost there are we do have a special ad efficiency tool on our website that's actually free for them to utilize um but I think it's a deeper dive into um how costs are maintained how costs are controlled the four I think the four or five questions that we have in that special ed section I mean that's where we would encourage you at least to start there um to our understanding I know that there's a contract going later on tonight about a special

240ed uh review and and that was based off of our recommendation when we left and and we would encourage that because that you know that you still have to serve students that by mean are we saying that you shouldn't stop serving them or anything like that but are there cost-saving methods that we can do um to help that because you know that's a significant contribution from your unrestricted general fund is pulling from other programs too right um you know because then eventually you're going have to figure out what programs to cut if that if that that cost is just increasing so it's bringing it to your attention so you're aware of it any questions on that okay um the next is just a comparison of the 2020 I think this is this is somewhat of

241the good news in terms of how the Department's running and how the organization's running as a whole uh again we're only comparing the number of no responses remember no is bad yes is good um there's been some from 2020 to now current there's been some slight changes to our FH but for the most part it's it's fairly it's pretty much it's it's the same document uh remember on the FH the SK the the questions are awaited so not all questions are actually scored the same in terms of a percentage you know we we believe that there are certain aspects that uh could cause the question to weigh a little bit more and so on so in comparing that um there were 14 sections that were either no change or there were an increase in the

242node responses and and here I just listed them out from the 2020 comparison to now in fact in the actual report the appendix contains the 2020 uh uh or a comparison of the 2020 report to now so again if I go and I'm just going to move forward to more of the last slide in 2020 your risk was 37.2% in 2024 I mean you dropped to then down 24.7% again both times you were triggered right so it still is considered a high risk but from a systems process and procedure standpoint there was significant Improvement internally within your department um um that caused that lower score and so you know I I I want to at least bring some good news in terms of that as hey there were some improvements hopefully that continues and and

243some of those noes that you see uh on here uh you know are are uh are change to yeses and so on and so forth the FH document is actually on FM's website so at any time you can pull it down and say hey we want to tackle this section this year or or whatever um or just have it as a general basis in terms of how they're doing how the district is doing fiscally so that concludes my report but I want to make sure if there's any questions that that you have um to my understanding the report was provided to you uh again know that we are a public agency and and so as soon as typically the board has an opportunity to review the report and so on then it is posted to

244our website as well uh and so on so are there any questions of I think so one um and and I think uh trusty um Chavez uh mentioned that in regards to uh suggestions um but I also heard you mention one of the items that we're going to be seeing today that you recommend that we adopt um so thank you for taking the time you know I think also thank you for highlighting the good you know since 2020 it's good news right it's never a good news to have fcmat looking over us but it's good news you know um in regards to our our team doing a good job um and making sure that we're dotting our eyes and crossing our teeth so um again I never want to see pick mat in our in

245you know in our um unless you invite us in but when we have it you know it's good to have this report you know um to prevent from going further or going down so that's and my only question was going to be about that trigger was it are we low risk are we high risk but you you made sure yeah it could be that could be confusing sometimes but you know because the only reason we were high risk is because we were triggered yes correct it doesn't mean that there's not significant issues to deal with right right uh again the fhr is a process document so to ensure that our our appropriate you know our process and procedures followed correctly and you know in accordance with best practice and and in some cases relevant law

246okay well thank you very much have a good evening thank you oh one second no no no I I was going to you know terara is back there she could close the door back okay so moving on to 601 Teamsters seeing no Teamsters moving on to 602 see no 602 moving on to 603 area I'm gonna wing it this is going to be fun members of the board superintendent the five of the rest of us that are here woohoo um I come before you tonight and I know we've had a lot of um heavy discussions about what's going to be moving forward um and area itself has been having discussions internally as well trying to prepare the Educators for what this school closure and school consolidation is going to look like the area board has

247also gotten together and discussed many things and one thing that I would like to kind of outline tonight is what area looking for from your leadership and your guidance position from here here you know these decisions we understand are not going to be made lightly we understand that things need to happen um as Danielle and I sat here tonight we're suffering from PTSD from when our two schools were closed 12 years ago so we know that there is life after school closure um we can adjust and we you know can create new awesome collaborations and new school School cultures and communities but they didn't happen overnight and that's one of the things that I think this district and you as a board I want to see the leadership on in telling people that it's okay

248to grieve to give us that time to fully understand and appreciate what where we came from but anticipating and expecting everything to snap back just because it's September is not going to be realistic we need guidance from you we need direction from you we need Grace from you to say that as we move forward we understand that you know we may need to take a step back and we're going to need to focus on self-care we're going to need to focus on building new cultures next school year while the academics and the rigor and everything should be held to the most exceptional standards that we are used to and have given our communities in the past also need to be counterbalanced with that time to heal that time to come together and that kind time

249to create that new school culture so that we can move forward and we can Excel I've pointed my members many times in the last few months to this little blue book here if you don't have a copy areat today.org under area resources it's our CBA it's the collective bargaining agreement control F and you type in a word and it'll just pop up on the document for you it's great um but one of the articles that the area executive board has gone over in great details in these last few uh months and one that I would ask that you guys start looking at is article 14 which is pages 37 through 49 in our CBA and that's the transfer assignment and reassignment article a lot of things are moving and shifting and a lot of words

250are being used and cross referenced in different ways we do have some language about what happens when there's a school closure and we do have some language about what happens when there's School consolidation but this school closure and this school consolidation were for one or two schools we weren't looking at 13 schools so when you're looking at school consolidations and saying that you're going to take this school here and just consolidate it to this school here the the membership is thinking that they're just going to be able to move well the problem is is that we know that we're over on FTE because we're so spread out so then how fair is it and who is going going to be the person that's chosen that when you consolidate those two schools that there isn't going

251to be a spot for all of those teachers to move together you guys are going to really need to think about the kind of language that's going to be needed to make it fair and accessible for every member not just because these are the two schools that are being told that they get to merge but what about it needs to be fair for the school that's closing as well as for the teachers and the members who are being Consolidated I understand that you also have Teamsters in CSA who have a completely different CBA and that's going to be a lot of heavy lifting on your guys's part as area we've asked that we try to make this process as smooth and seamless as possible but also kind of sooner rather than later I know that

252we've started to we set some dates to do some tentative bargaining around this specific topic and area is looking to be sure that as we're doing that we're taking into account a whole bunch of other things so when you're going into directing your bargaining team please look at and consider things like schools start hiring in February the faster we can start getting some of this process done will help alleviate some of that stress and anxiety for your Educators as we're looking to move forward to have you know how when we're going to ask the communities to pick their new schools when the teachers are going to be allowed to see what open positions are available when we're going to be able to pick our schools you know I've done it with 20 teachers I think

253but we're looking at like 100 150 maybe 200 teachers that are going to have to pick their senior pick their placement on seniority and what that's going to look like so if you have any questions I know that you have your District team and then you have me as well um please reach out because again I I reinforce this with my members all the time when they um come and ask me questions this isn't just areas bargaining agreement this is the bargaining agreement between the association and the district and we've both agreed to the terms and stuff that are in here so I ask that as we move forward with this that we give clear direction to your board and so that we can do a clear and concise message when it goes out to

254our staff the name of that blue book again collective bargaining agreement okay you said we could just look it up in area control.org um my website is areat today.org yeah no areat today.org and it's under area resources you want to search something it's control if you want to search like if you want to look for transfer yeah once you get onto the document you do contrl F and then a little box pop yeah that's where the the control it pops up and then you can type in like transfer and then it'll show you all the places in the document that the word transfer isn't there thank you I'll be writing all my questions out I got a lot of them for you any other tr these have any comments okay so the next one whoops

255a r AA I didn't see uh moving on huh she need you guys sck it so moving on to superintendent comment yeah I I will be skipping Madam president my comments for today thank you moving on to trustees comments skipping also because it's the late night or short and sweet short and sweet maybe um I'll uh I'll rush through it um it was great to be out at the pan University with trusty uh Chavez and the uh superintendent and the parents and families thank you for coming out um um also great to have been out there at the Harvest Festival at Adelante one the Spanish dual immersion program um also at the Multicultural day out at painter Vietnamese D immersion um great programs great presentations it was great to see the students uh presenting on

256the different cultures um also was great to be out for the other los muos at Shephard um got to go to various classrooms and present with students and uh share some of the culture and then see some of the beautiful altars they had made um especially one that um I I was grateful to see is a a teacher had all the students who had been through um Shephard their name and their uh their picture um of those that I have passed so I'm just special to see that honoring the students um of Shephard and then finally I want to thank the voters of alumrock um for their confidence in me for another four years um you know grateful they're listening tuning in to what's happening and making sure that um you know we elect people

257um that will represent represent them so thank you again and I look forward to serving this community another four years okay so just quickly you know oh Bo G to have to get used to this right uh so um you know wanted to go through School visits uh you know in October gos Lindale sayar sh's Early Learning Center uh Linda Vista Georgia Kon and then um last Friday Meer Renaissance at Fisher at Cassel uh you know the first six were in October so I uh celebrated Halloween and donated candy and you know to those six six schools in the October month in honor of Halloween you know it's always good to ensure that our kids have a little bit have a little treat uh you know uh they you know they deserve the best and

258you know I'm always happy to donate um had a great time at parent University though I was not available to be with superintendent Serta and board president chamz and trusty Herrera loera you know I was able to swing by in the afternoon and do the raffle which was always great fun the little kids all always enjoy you know getting their scooter or the the big prize was the bicycle some won the balls uh I think another one want a s you know one of those Simon Says type of thing but you know uh uh it's always good to see our parents take a active interest in their kids education uh education is a you know success is a partnership between schools and families and uh we you know we would not be able to do

259that without them uh trust board President Chavez and I went to the uh the Santa clar County School boards association dinner in October so uh always good to get to see our colleagues in other districts um congratulations to board vice president Quintero for getting into the East Side Hall of Fame which you know superintendent Serta and board President Chavez and I uh have the honor of attending as well and I myself won a silent auction prize actually everyone's talking yes to lunch with Senator [Laughter] cores well well we'll see we'll see but uh other than that I look forward with the meeting uh with superintendent Serta Mr Robert Escobar at the Jose Valdez uh math program you know let's you know see what we can do to improve uh math education in our in the

260district and I look forward to the last you know the last leg of the tour of alam rock on uh one week from tomorrow and you know rounding out with Hub atalante 2 and dorsa so those are my comments for tonight thank you so much can't follow that very well but I do want um two things one um I did see that the mckin vento Christmas event event is coming up on December and I'm looking at you Sandra is it the 18th 17th it is the 18th yeah it was announced yesterday thank you at the Youth Empowerment Alliance Tech Team yes that was yesterday morning um so I will be getting the word out to my city colleagues um to to make sure um folks are aware of that and I know we've attended um

261the last couple years it's very um it's a great event so um and then lastly I just want to congratulate uh truste Corina era Lera um for coming in first and continuing to represent us for the next four years in our dear Alam rock thank you thank you I'm moving on to I say that again it's wait I know that's what I said moving on thank you appreciate it um okay so moving on to shees it's really late I can't even see this now okay 701 public hearing school closures and school consolidation recommon yeah there was a resolution that we have to approve yeah so that's so she told me to say 701 okay so can 801 we also uh pulled that one we pulled 802 and so moving on to 90 1 excuse me

26210.01 approve School field trips and Mr me can you okay okay so there's uh first and a second no public comment so I'll liveit to say the uh traditional Bon voage first we have to vote all in favor 5 Zer okay one more time thank you very much moving on to 102 approval uh have a motion and a uh from VP kto second from Corina loera uh no public comment is necessary because there's no public so I'm moving on for the vote all in favor raise your hands so 5 Z motion passes 10:2 unanimously now 1101 you can read that later for your uh thrills or or enjoyment and so now we're going to move on to 11:02 public comment on on what 11:01 seeing no public move on to 11:02 approve new management position

263Bond program manager motion to approve somebody give me one approval okay all right so any public comment no public comment any trusty comment no trusty comment all in favor 5 zero motion passes thank you who made the second oh1 hang on I think there's something from arabel yeah who made the second because all I heard is tressy Flores Shelton and that's it Corina okay okay okay moving on to 1201 the bay alarm company contract do I have a motion approval okay uh vice president kto moved approval for the uh $170,000 contract with Bay alarm company do I have a second second I have a second froma trustee and so any public comment no public comment any trustee comment no truste comment move for approval 5 Z thank you very much 122 move to approve Faith

264and Action Community Education Services for $960,000 okay so Corina Loa move for approval second by VP kto for action item uh 1202 any public comment no public comment any trusty comment no trusty comment so all in favor 5 Z motion passes unanimously thank you approve the Glenn price group contract for on 1203 motion go ahead contract the amount of $18,000 second okay second by any question sorry um assistant superintendant Garcia is this paid for out of um sorry we're in Glenn price contract what's the source of the funding for this assistant superintendent Garcia I'm I'm in this space and I can respond to that if that's okay dras is on [Laughter] she's hey we've been here too late let's go she's not feeling well so she went home but she's on um on the screen

265so she she'll answer okay we're listening the funding stream is the community it's ccpp it's the community uh schools funding uh that's coming in and this is for them like it says in there um help with the data monitoring everything else and they also are helping with the grant right grant right piece yeah so it's coming out say it I heard the acronym school it's it's uh oh my goodness California California Community Schools oh okay okay the Community Schools okay like a new thing okay thank you okay all in favor vote 5 Zer motion passes on 1203 uh 1301 approve of the Rising Star Academy contract 2024 2025 school year uh in hold on this it's this is for an increase the original contract was approved for 224 $ 4,573 new increase request of $1

26615,740 33 to pay for the 2024 2025 school year total contract amount for 2024 2025 school year is in the amount of 375,000 749 33 thank you do I have a second okay second by uh truste famam um public comment seeing none trustey comment seeing none all in favor raise your hand okay passes unanimously moving on to 1302 approval of curriculum Associates uh contract for 2024 2025 school year is an increase of $17,600 to pay for professional learning license concessions total contract amount for the 2024 2025 school years in the amount of $ 67,5 6548 I have a second uh it was a tie okay thank you okay so um we have first in a second uh do we have any public comment no public comment do I have any trusty comment no trusty comment

267all in favor raise your hand 5 Z motion passes on 1302 unanimously moving on to the consent calendar 13 1303 sorry move approval of the Pine Hill NPS contract 2024 2025 school year uh this contract to add one additional student to attend fine Hill due to severity of their disability uh the contract on the amount of $ 69,90 increase uh request is $55,100 to pay for the 2024 2025 school year total contract would be$ 125,50 second do I have a second second okay second uh any public comment seeing none any trustee comment um seeing none let's vote all in favor of 1303 so the motion passes unanimously take over I gota go move to approve the entire consent calendar 1401 through 1410 I have a motion to approve the consent calendar I'll second with a

268comment second with a comment yep real quick under 14 uh 09 under approve theou I just want to call out two things I want to thank um the um food unit there's a better word for that Child Nutrition thank you for working with loes and Fishes on um uh providing uh food waste so it doesn't get wasted and then also very excited to see that the winter vappa will be at San Jose State University so whoops saw that that's great news bye right further comments for members of the board Fe none any comments for members of the public see none I'll go ahead and call for a vote all in favor please indicate by raising your hand motion passes for uh in favor uh with one board member um presently not here um future uh

269agenda request those wishing to place items on the board please reach out to the board president um and follow those procedures um item 16.0 one uh yes um board member yeah since we are journey in honor of in the memory of pH niosi I'd like just to make a few comments for the uh let's see here founder of the Jazz Mr you know it it it uh you know uh what is it uh I you know for those who may not have heard I regret to for you know this the Allen Rock School District community and the passing of Mr Bill Nicolosi a longtime music teacher in this District founder of the Alam Rock jazz band uh you know long you know uh a story career 40 years of service to this District uh uh

270a legend in East Side music you know uh before he became a teacher here he was actually the director of the San Jose State un University band so uh you know um we we lost a a very good person I and I will say in my own experience with Mr Nicolosi someone who had a lot of love for the kids and someone who knew when to push into their potential and I tell you and someone who uh was a tireless Advocate and one of the last things that I did in my board presidency last year was is to you know put put a decent Band-Aid on the issue of uh transportation for the Alam Rock jazz band for the kids rehearsal so that they were able to maintain a consistent schedule and that they you

271know uh could recruit enough kids to ensure that there was a uh full full alumrock jazz band so you know it is with that that we uh you know adjourn in honor of his memory thank you Mr President um any further comments Mr German being none that I'll go ahead and add my comments as we adjourn uh really appreciated Mr Nicolosi's uh engagement with the district a long time he's a retiree and he still kept on coming back uh looking at all those little details those issues that would arise and will uniquely affect the jazz band and uh really engaging to try to rather than just simply complain like he came with like a whole slew of of options and solutions as to how we could approach this and figure out how to resolve it

272so I'm always I was always appreciative of his uh desire to figure out how we can get around uh these issues so we can continue to serve the students and how the Jazz Band continue to thrive uh so um for that for ton of other reasons is ability to reach out to you and to demand that you show up at the next concert um and then you do so you know willingly not just because he's asking you to be there but because he put on a great show in large part because of the work that he did uh to set that program up so he definitely will be missed um looking forward to um seeing how we can properly as a district honor his memory some in in one way or another be fitting of

273somebody who gave so much of himself to the district all right I'll go ahead and adjourn at uh 10:50 p.m. that's that